Despite all of the uncertainty, the information already available makes it possible to know what to watch for.

At some point this year, perhaps as soon as this month, the former president of the United States may be charged with a serious crime. After a years-long elaborate dance with the law in which he usually stayed just one step ahead, Donald Trump now faces at least three serious investigations that could produce criminal charges. He denies wrongdoing in all cases, but many legal experts think that prosecutors have grounds to charge him and will. Others believe that Trump shouldn’t be charged, or that prosecutors might choose not to charge him even if they can.

What actually will happen is unpredictable. We don’t know what pieces of evidence—or even what investigations—might exist that aren’t public, we don’t know how prosecutors will wield the discretion the law affords them, and, of course, we don’t know how a jury might fall on any charges that end up being tried. But the mountains of evidence already before the public—about Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election, about his handling of government documents, and about his previous interactions with the justice system—suggest a fierce conflict to come. “He has learned that due process is the Achilles’ heel of liberal democracy,” Paul Rosenzweig, a former federal prosecutor, told me. “He’s weaponized the court systems all of his life.”

Despite all of the uncertainty, the information already available makes it possible to know what to watch for, or perhaps where to watch. Here is a field guide to the potential indictments of Donald Trump.

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