A pile of pending lawsuits over Donald Trump's personal and business conduct could put his nominee to the Supreme Court in an awkward position: deciding whether to cast potentially pivotal votes on legal matters of keen importance to the president.

Virtually all justices wind up ruling on policy issues affecting the president who appointed them. But Trump is enmeshed in more than half a dozen significant court cases involving everything from his alleged sexual behavior before taking office to claims that his businesses are profiting from his presidency and allegations that he misused funds through his charitable foundation.


In addition, the Supreme Court could be asked to rule on other legal questions critical to the president, such as whether Robert Mueller's probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election was legally authorized or whether Trump has the authority to dismiss the special prosecutor.

The legal pressure Trump faces on many fronts is likely to spill into the confirmation hearings for his nominee — whom he is expected to name next week to replace retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy, long seen as the court's swing vote — as senators seek to use the high-profile platform to publicize the unusual legal predicaments.

"Senators are going to ask the nominee about this. There's no question about it," said Josh Blackman, a professor at South Texas College of Law. "The big one, I think, is the question of what happens if Trump decided to fire Mueller."

"It’s one place where the Democrats may get some traction," University of Richmond law professor Carl Tobias said of the Russia-related questions that could come before the court. "It does seem like a conflict to a lot of people. Is a person handpicked by the president going to be objective about the person who nominated him?"

POLITICO Playbook newsletter Sign up today to receive the #1-rated newsletter in politics Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Many legal experts, including some prominent Republicans, say the fact that a judge was nominated by a particular president is not a basis to ask him or her to avoid all cases connected to that president.

"The idea that you can't judge somebody who picked you is probably not a ground for recusal. You've got to show there's a connection between the case at hand and the activity of the judge," Sen. Lindsey Graham said Sunday on NBC's "Meet The Press." "I wouldn't have a broad rule that you can't, you know, review anything against President Trump because he chose you."

Some of the major legal issues swirling around the president could wind up at the Supreme Court within months, if not sooner. Trump allies are using a pending grand jury subpoena for an associate of former Trump adviser Roger Stone as a vehicle to challenge Mueller's authority. The test of the special counsel's legitimacy could move through the courts quickly, since such cases are typically handled on an expedited basis.

Trump is also facing three different groundbreaking suits accusing him of using his business to violate the Constitution's ban on accepting emoluments from foreign countries. An appeal of the dismissal of one of those cases is pending at the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York. A ruling by that court could come by fall, teeing up the issue for the Supreme Court.

Another emoluments case in Maryland could result within weeks in court-ordered discovery demands that Trump is likely to fight — an issue that could also be appealed on an urgent basis to the Supreme Court.

Several suits relating to Trump's alleged sexual behavior are also advancing in the courts.

So far, the president's lawyers have failed in their bids to halt a suit brought by former "Apprentice" contestant Summer Zervos relating to Trump's denial that he made unwanted advances toward her. Trump's attorneys are currently asking New York's highest court to block her case on the grounds that state courts should not oversee cases involving a sitting president. If that court rebuffs Trump, the Supreme Court could be his last resort.

There are also a pair of suits brought against Trump by porn star Stormy Daniels: a case seeking to void a pre-election $130,000 "hush money" deal aimed at bottling up her claims about a sexual encounter with Trump a decade earlier, and another case accusing Trump of defamation after he denied Daniels' claim that a man approached her in a parking lot and threatened her to keep quiet.

Trump is also trying to beat back a suit by protesters at a March 2016 campaign rally in Kentucky who claim they were assaulted after Trump exhorted the crowd to "get 'em out of here." The 6th Circuit heard arguments in the case last month and could rule at any time.

Adding to the high court's potential Trump docket is New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood's suit charging Trump with self-dealing in operation of the Trump Foundation.

"There's a decent chance of some of the Trump cases making it to the [Supreme] Court by the end of next term," said University of Texas law professor Stephen Vladeck.

Supreme Court justices basically get to decide for themselves whether to step back from a case, although lower court judges are removed on occasion. In February, a new Trump appointee to the district court bench in Washington, Trevor McFadden, turned down a motion arguing that he should recuse from a Russia-related case because he served as a volunteer on the Trump transition team. In a famous episode in 2004, Justice Antonin Scalia refused to recuse himself from a case related to Vice President Dick Cheney even though the two went on a hunting trip together in Louisiana.

One shortlister who, if nominated, can expect a serious grilling about Trump's potential interests before the courts is D.C. Circuit Judge Brett Kavanaugh. A former George W. Bush White House lawyer and a backer of expansive executive power, Kavanaugh wrote a 2009 Minnesota law review article that inveighed against the independent counsel mechanism and suggested that presidents should be immune from civil suits and criminal prosecution.

"Congress might consider a law exempting a President — while in office — from criminal prosecution and investigation, including from questioning by criminal prosecutors or defense counsel," Kavanaugh wrote. "The indictment and trial of a sitting President, moreover, would cripple the federal government, rendering it unable to function with credibility in either the international or domestic arenas. ... And a President who is concerned about an ongoing criminal investigation is almost inevitably going to do a worse job as President."

The remedy for dealing with a wayward president, Kavanaugh said, is not found in the courts but in Congress. "No single prosecutor, judge, or jury should be able to accomplish what the Constitution assigns to the Congress," he wrote.

Legal experts say some potential nominees with little paper trail on the subject might be able to dance around the issue if senators ask about a potential court battle between Mueller and Trump, but Kavanaugh's stated views will make it harder for him to demur.

"If it's Kavanaugh, he's going to have a rough row to hoe because of his writings on the special counsel statute," Blackman said. "He knew this was coming; it isn't a mystery, and it pops at the worst conceivable time, with all this public debate about it."

While many of Trump's legal woes were known when he nominated Justice Neil Gorsuch to the court last year, those now seem closer to reaching the Supreme Court. During Gorsuch's confirmation hearing last March, the basic Trump-Russia allegations were public. But Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein's decision to appoint a special counsel, fanning the flames of the controversy and angering Trump, did not come until more than a month after Gorsuch was confirmed by the Senate.

During his hearings, Gorsuch did face some questions about how he would handle cases relating to Trump's politically charged policy issues, such as the administration's restrictions on people from some Muslim-majority countries entering the U.S. Gorsuch insisted he'd take a disinterested approach to such issues.

"When I became a judge, they gave me a gavel, not a rubber stamp. ... I can assure you, I am nobody's rubber stamp," Gorsuch declared.

Gorsuch was asked briefly about the emoluments issue but didn't say much beyond noting that the question doesn't come up very often.

"I do think that the emoluments clause has set in a rather dusty corner for a long time until recent headlines, and I know that there are cases that are least impending in that area," Gorsuch said at the time.

The current Trump docket could be the tip of the litigation iceberg. With the exception of House moves against the Justice Department over the Russia investigation, GOP leaders in both chambers have been meek about using their oversight powers under Trump. If the House swings to Democrats this fall, the administration could face a hail of subpoenas, with legal fights almost certain to follow. Some of those could easily escalate to the Supreme Court.

"If the Democrats retake the House in November, there could be a whole lot next year in court over executive privilege," Vladeck said. "This is the beginning, not the end."

