Trump’s legal peril has faded. Not so for some of his allies.

Donald Trump is walking free from most of the criminal investigations that have dogged him for years. Some allies who promoted his lies about the 2020 election are poised for choice jobs in his administration. And after his inauguration next week, Trump is widely expected to carry out a campaign promise to pardon at least some of rioters who attacked the U.S. Capitol on his behalf.

But the legal troubles of others who spurred his falsehoods and sought to reverse his 2020 presidential loss show no signs of abating.

“It’s almost like the very top of the food chain is going to go and get off without consequence. And the very bottom of the food chain - those who actually engaged in the day-of kind of activities - are going to be pardoned,” said James Sample, a law professor at Hofstra University.

“But the folks who were in a sense the field leaders … seem to be the ones who are going to have the most lasting consequences,” Sample added.

Those who have faced repercussions include Trump attorneys Sidney Powell, Jenna Ellis and Kenneth Chesebro, who under plea deals were sentenced to probation in 2023 for their role in trying to overturn Trump’s loss in Georgia. The contrast between their fates and Trump’s lays bare the stark disparities in outcomes in cases rooted in false claims that the 2020 election was stolen. Dozens of others - including top Trump advisers and low-level activists - face charges after trying to reverse that election. Some may see the cases against them dry up, while others could head to trial soon.

Aides to Trump did not respond to requests for comment.

[Trump would have been convicted of trying to overturn 2020 election results, special counsel says in report]

Many who amplified questions about the 2020 election have avoided legal trouble and positioned themselves well as Trump prepares to return to office. Trump has tapped former Florida attorney general Pam Bondi to lead the Justice Department, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-New York) to serve as ambassador to the United Nations, former senator David Perdue (R-Georgia) for ambassador to China and lawyer Harmeet K. Dhillon for assistant attorney general in charge of civil rights.

Trump still faces some legal headaches, but his November victory improved his situation dramatically, as did a summer Supreme Court ruling granting presidents broad legal immunity.

A federal judge dismissed charges against him in one case. A special counsel dropped charges against him in another because the Justice Department prohibits its prosecutors from charging and trying sitting presidents. The case against him in Georgia is stymied - and could be derailed - because of a romantic relationship between the district attorney and a lawyer she hired to oversee the case.

A New York jury convicted Trump in May of 34 felonies for falsifying business records to conceal hush money payments to an adult-film actress. A state judge sentenced him as a felon Friday but gave him no penalty to avoid encroaching on the powers of the presidency.

“In this case, we must be respectful of the office of the presidency and mindful of the fact that the defendant will be inaugurated as president in 10 days,” New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan said at Trump’s sentencing. “As a practical matter, the most sensible sentence prior to his inauguration is an unconditional discharge.”

Trump hit a low point after Jan. 6, 2021, when he became a political pariah because of the attack on the Capitol. The House impeached him, but most Republicans in the Senate refused to convict him and bar him from serving again. That proved crucial to his political and legal survival, said Edward B. Foley, an Ohio State University election law professor.

“What we’ve learned in the aftermath is that would have been the only feasible method under our constitutional system to hold Trump to account for his lie about 2020,” Foley said.

Reviews by courts and independent groups have repeatedly found that the 2020 election was properly decided. But the notion that it was stolen has had remarkable staying power among Trump’s base because of his repeated false claims about his loss that year. One paradox of the fallout of that election is that while Trump led the charge in undermining the results, he enjoys more protections than anyone from legal consequences.

The Supreme Court’s immunity ruling in July would have made it difficult to pursue cases against Trump even if he hadn’t won in November. But his victory strengthened his hand because he will control the Justice Department and can prevent it from taking action against him or his backers.

By reclaiming the White House, Trump will also regain the ability to grant pardons - a sweeping power he has promised to use for those charged in the Capitol riot and could use for others in the coming years.

Presidents can pardon people for federal crimes but not for state crimes, and they cannot undo rulings in civil cases, such as the defamation decision against Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani.

The state cases against Trump’s allies can continue, but the president-elect could make the jobs of state prosecutors more difficult by having the Justice Department launch investigations into them. That could help supporters who remain in his orbit, such as attorneys Boris Epshteyn and Christina Bobb. Both were among those charged with forgery and other crimes in Arizona related to the convening of pro-Trump presidential electors to sign official-looking paperwork even though Trump lost the state.

Prosecutors in four other swing states - Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin - have filed similar charges. A few have pleaded guilty, but others appear braced to proceed with their cases, even if they take years.

The Wisconsin case has intensified in recent weeks. State Attorney General Josh Kaul (D) filed conspiracy charges against two Trump attorneys and a campaign adviser in June - and filed 10 more forgery-related charges against each of them in December. The move left some Republicans seething.

“We had thought that this would end. The country asked for it to end in November,” Jim Troupis, one of the Trump attorneys facing charges in Wisconsin, told reporters after a recent court hearing. “But lawfare in all its despicable forms will not end in Wisconsin.”

Many of the elector cases are moving slowly. Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel (D) filed charges in July 2023, but those cases are still in preliminary stages. A judge threw out charges against Trump electors in Nevada after she determined Attorney General Aaron Ford (D) had brought them in the wrong county. Ford has appealed that decision and filed new charges in another county.

More than a dozen of the disputed 2020 Trump electors are so committed to him that they signed up to serve in the same capacity in 2024. Among them is Meshawn Maddock, a former Michigan GOP official who cast an electoral vote for Trump last month.

“The fact that she got to do that, it’s almost like a full-circle moment,” said her attorney, Nicholas Somberg. The next step toward justice, he added, “is getting the case dismissed.”

Others have also stood by Trump. When Ellis pleaded guilty, she said through tears that she felt “deep remorse” for her conduct and would not have represented Trump if she knew more at the time. But on her podcast last week, she said she looks forward to Trump’s swearing-in so he can “reverse a lot of [President Joe] Biden’s nonsense.” Ellis did not respond to a request for comment.

Several attorneys who helped Trump have faced trouble. Legal regulators disbarred Giuliani and John Eastman, two lawyers who repeatedly invoked discredited theories about the 2020 election. In addition, a jury in 2023 ordered Giuliani to pay $148 million to two Georgia election workers he defamed, and a federal judge on Friday found Giuliani in civil contempt of court for continuing to make false claims about them.

Some of those suffering legal challenges didn’t work for Trump but seized on his falsehoods about the 2020 election. In November, regulators in Wisconsin alleged former state Supreme Court justice Michael Gableman repeatedly violated legal ethics rules when he spearheaded a taxpayer-funded review of the 2020 election launched by Republican state lawmakers. The case could cost him his law license.

Others have faced much more severe consequences.

A jury in Mesa County, Colorado, convicted former county clerk Tina Peters in August of conspiring to commit criminal impersonation and six other crimes after she allowed someone to copy digital election data in an unsuccessful effort to show that voting machines allowed cheating. A judge sentenced her to nine years in prison. In an unrelated case in November, a postal carrier and another woman in the county were charged with stealing mail ballots in what one of them said was an attempt to test the state’s system for verifying the validity of votes.

Those charges echo similar ones from Wisconsin. In March, a jury convicted Milwaukee’s former deputy elections director of misconduct in office after she sent ballots in the names of fake military members to the home of a state lawmaker in what she said was meant to expose the potential for voter fraud. In a separate case, a conservative activist faces two felonies and two misdemeanors for ordering ballots in the names of others to try to show election fraud was possible.

In Michigan, three Trump backers - two attorneys and a former state lawmaker - could face legal reckonings soon. They are accused of coaxing election officials to turn over their voting machines to them so they could examine how they operated in hopes of uncovering evidence of fraud.