When the Federal Reserve recently signaled interest rate cuts next year, the stock market soared to record highs and analysts voiced sunny hopes of a "soft landing."

Arriving less than a year before the presidential contest, the announcement raised a separate consideration: What the rate cuts could mean for President Joe Biden's reelection bid.

Analysts who spoke to ABC News said research shows that a strong economy benefits an incumbent presidential candidate, since voters factor their financial well being into an assessment of the leader's job performance.....

"A good economy benefits an incumbent," Ray Fair, a professor at Yale University who oversees a model that forecasts elections based on economic conditions, told ABC News. "A bad economy goes the other way.....

By some key measures, the U.S. economy demonstrates good health: The unemployment rate hovers near a 50-year low, economic growth surged in a recent three-month period and inflation stands well below a peak last year.

Following a series of recent court developments, former President Donald Trump’s 2023-24 legal schedule is coming into focus, as is his political one. In the calendar below, we capture significant events in both domains—and how they interrelate.

The busy legal schedule includes cases in which Trump is a criminal or civil defendant. New York State’s civil fraud trial is well underway and will conclude in December. The trials then cascade throughout 2024, starting with the second E. Jean Carroll case in January and reaching a crescendo with the federal election interference trial in DC in March, followed by the federal classified documents trial in Florida in May and the Georgia election interference case proposed by prosecutors for August. The New York hush money/election interference case is also scheduled for March but prosecutors have suggested they will move it to elsewhere in the year if necessary for the DC case to proceed. .....

While the full calendar tracks hundreds of events, here are the top 25 legal and political dates as of now:

Tuesday, December 19, 2023 – GA (Clark 11th Circuit): Jeffrey Clark appellate brief due in his appeal of district order denying removal petition; GA (Shafer, Latham, Still 11th Circuit): Shafer, Latham & Still briefs in support of appeal of district court order denying removal petitions due
Wednesday, December 20, 2023 – DC Trump Case: Trump to file a response in the U.S. Supreme Court to gov’t petition for a writ of certiorari before judgment on the question of Presidential Immunity and double jeopardy, due by 4:00 PM
Saturday, December 23, 2023 – DC Trump Case: Trump brief and joint appendix due in his D.C. Circuit appeal of Judge Chutkan order denying his motions to dismiss based on Presidential Immunity and constitutional grounds
Saturday, December 30, 2023 – DC Trump Case: Gov’t brief in Trump D.C. Circuit appeal of Judge Chutkan order denying his motions to dismiss based on Presidential Immunity and constitutional grounds
Tuesday, January 2, 2024 – DC Trump Case: Trump reply brief in his D.C. Circuit appeal of Judge Chutkan order denying his motions to dismiss based on Presidential Immunity and constitutional grounds
Thursday, January 4, 2024 – NY Criminal Documents: Hearing on motions to dismiss
Friday, January 5, 2024 – NY Civil Fraud: Parties to submit final briefs following trial evidence
Monday, January 8, 2024 – GA: Motions (other than motions in limine) due (for all defendants except Mark Meadows, Jeffrey Clark and David Shafer)
Tuesday, January 9, 2024 – DC Trump Case: Oral arguments in Trump D.C. Circuit appeal of Judge Chutkan order denying his motions to dismiss based on Presidential Immunity and constitutional grounds, at 9:30 AM; MAL: Joint discovery status report due
Thursday, January 11, 2024 – NY Civil Fraud: Parties’ closing arguments
Monday, January 15, 2024 – Iowa Republican Presidential Caucuses
Tuesday, January 16, 2024 – MAL: Defendants motions to compel discovery; Carroll I: Trial begins at 9:30 AM (on damages only)
Thursday, January 18, 2024 – GA (Clark 11th Circuit): DA Willis’s appellee brief due in Jeffrey Clark appeal of district order denying removal petition; GA (Shafer, Latham, Still 11th Circuit): DA brief due in response to Shafer, Latham & Still briefs in support of appeal of district court order denying removal petitions
Wednesday, January 31, 2024 – NY Civil Fraud: Justice Engoron to file written decision
Friday, February 2, 2024 – MAL: Gov’t response to defendants motions to compel discovery
Monday, February 5, 2024 – GA (Meadows, Clark, Shafer): Motions (other than motions in limine) due for Mark Meadows, Jeffrey Clark and David Shafer
Wednesday, February 15, 2024 – NY Criminal Documents: Hearing for decision on motions and to consider any scheduling conflicts and potential changes to trial date, at 9:30 AM
Thursday, February 22, 2024 – MAL: Pretrial motions due
Friday, March 1, 2024 – MAL: Scheduling conference to consider Trump motion to continue May 20 trial date and set outstanding pretrial deadlines
Monday, March 4, 2024 – DC Trump Case: Trial was to have begun, now held in abeyance pending resolution of appeal
Tuesday, March 5, 2024 – Super Tuesday Primaries
Monday, March 25, 2024 – NY Criminal Documents: Trial currently scheduled to begin
Monday, May 20, 2024 – MAL: Trial begins
Monday-Thursday, July 15-18, 2024 – Republican National Convention
Monday, August 5, 2024 – GA: Gov’t proposed date for trial to begin

But that wasn’t all he did. Meadows and his defense counsel have also tried to get the case against him moved to federal court. A lower court rejected the Republican’s argument, and as my MSNBC colleague Jordan Rubin recently explained, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals appeared skeptical, too. It was against this backdrop that NBC News reported:


It was a unanimous ruling, issued just three days after oral arguments, written by Judge William Pryor — one of the federal judiciary’s most conservative jurists, and a man considered by Trump for the U.S. Supreme Court.....

Evidently, no. The three-judge appellate panel not only rejected Meadows’ core claim, they added that even if the Republican were still in the White House, he still wouldn’t be allowed to transfer the case because his alleged crimes were separate from his official duties.

The judges went so far as to describe Meadows’ post-defeat visit to Georgia as part of a scheme to “infiltrate” an ongoing recount, which wasn’t the job of a White House chief of staff.

We learned Friday that multiple sources had confirmed to CNN that in the final hours of Donald Trump’s term as president, a 10-inch thick binder of unredacted classified U.S. intelligence on Russia went missing. As far as anyone knows, the highly sensitive material is still in the wind. The intelligence community considered the loss significant enough that, a year later, intelligence officials felt it necessary to brief leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee on the potential compromise.....

We learned Friday that multiple sources had confirmed to CNN that in the final hours of Donald Trump’s term as president, a 10-inch thick binder of unredacted classified U.S. intelligence on Russia went missing. As far as anyone knows, the highly sensitive material is still in the wind. The intelligence community considered the loss significant enough that, a year later, intelligence officials felt it necessary to brief leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee on the potential compromise.

Now comes news of the missing binder, described as containing “raw” and “unredacted” classified reporting about Russia, including how that country attempted to interfere in the 2016 presidential election between Trump and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Trump ordered the declassification of the intelligence used to justify the FBI opening its Crossfire Hurricane investigation into Russia’s attempt to help Trump win the election. The binder reportedly reveals intelligence gleaned from secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act intercepts and reporting provided by our NATO allies. Some of the material may not be new, or even particularly sensitive, because certain documents included in the binder were redacted and can be found on the FBI’s website. But significant portions of the binder have never been publicly revealed. That’s because raw, unredacted intelligence reveals the sources and methods, often singular in nature, used to collect it. That means that a lone human source or technical device could be compromised if their reporting falls into the wrong hands......

As he runs for the presidency for the third time, the report of the missing binder is a reminder that we must hold Trump and his cohorts accountable for jeopardizing America’s secrets and treating classified data like it’s their personal currency. Eventually, we’ll find some justice — and maybe even the missing binder. Not a week goes by when we aren’t reminded of the risk posed by another Trump term. If he’s elected again, he’ll ensure there won’t be any Pat Cipollones or Cassidy Hutchinsons around him to try and mitigate the risk or tell us what’s happening. Folks like that will be conspicuous by their absence — just like the binder.