Trump appear in court,
Throughout all four criminal cases, the former president has consistently used the constitutional protections afforded by an allegedly corrupt court system to delay his jury trial until after November’s election.
Trump has a history of masterfully wrangling the courts to delay responsibility by pursuing every possible option of appeal, frequently by employing inventive legal tactics that need time to pursue in court.
With Trump anticipated to attend, the tactic will be on display on Thursday when Trump’s attorneys contest the validity of special counsel Jack Smith’s case against the presumed Republican candidate for his hoarding of secret materials at his Florida club.
Trump argues that he has the right to bring sensitive materials home, therefore Judge Aileen Cannon will consider his requests for the case to be dismissed. In addition, he alleges that, despite obvious distinctions in their circumstances, he was handled differently from other top officials who had classified material, such as President Joe Biden, and that he is the victim of selective prosecution.
Additionally, he is asserting presidential immunity broadly, as he has in previous courtroom dramas, perhaps believing that his position as the head of state exempts him from the law.
Cannon is considering delaying the trial’s late May start date, which would support Trump’s efforts to keep it from starting before November.
Smith expressed a genuine feeling of exasperation in his court documents for the lawsuit last week, not for the first time. Calling the former president’s claims “frivolous,” he requested Cannon to dismiss them, stating that the “immunity claim here is so wholly without merit that it is difficult to understand except as part of a strategic effort for delay.”
Additionally, frustration has been mounting over Cannon, a judge that Trump chose, who detractors claim has supported the president-elect’s plans by proceeding with pre-trial matters leisurely.
Trump’s victory in Georgia
The Fort Pierce, Florida hearing is being held one day after Trump secured a victory in a different lawsuit involving election meddling in Georgia. In order to pressure the state legislature and authorities to void the 2020 election, the court dropped six of the 41 counts in the indictment against Trump and a few co-defendants.
The judge reasoned that the charges lacked the necessary specificity on the underlying alleged offense. Despite leaving the majority of the racketeering indictment intact, Judge Scott McAfee’s ruling was a setback for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. Instead of ninety-one, Trump is now charged with 88 crimes in four cases.
McAfee has been busy even though any trial is not expected for months. He is expected to announce his decision by Friday on whether to disqualify Willis from the case on the grounds of an alleged conflict of interest regarding a romantic relationship with an attorney she hired to help her prosecute the case.
A decision to bar Willis would be a massive victory for Trump since it would rule out the entire Fulton County district attorney’s office and could see the case pass to another jurisdiction. Such a step would almost certainly add further delays to a complex case, likely pushing it into next year at least.
Additionally successful are Trump’s attempts to extend the deadline for his federal election prosecution. Smith’s prospects of having the case tried this year are seriously jeopardized by the Supreme Court’s decision to accept his unprecedented claims of presidential immunity. He has already taken up many weeks using his right to extended appeals.
The top court may not rule on the issue until the end of June, and it won’t even hear arguments on the case until the following month. It will still be very difficult to get Smith’s case on the docket this year if the judges reject Trump’s argument that he cannot be charged.
A crucial choice over whether to proceed might be made by Judge Tanya Chutkan during the hectic final months of the general election campaign.
The trial that appears to be the least likely to harm the former president is the one that is scheduled to begin on March 25. A former adult film actress received hush money in the New York criminal case.
However, Trump has been attempting his delay strategies even here. He requests that the trial be postponed until after the Supreme Court decides on his lawsuit about presidential immunity.
Given that the hush money payment was made before Trump’s inauguration and the 2016 election, this looks like a long shot.
However, the prosecution intends to provide some evidence to Trump’s legal team in the form of tweets he sent while serving in the Oval Office, providing a slender window of opportunity.
Why the credibility of the legal system depends on due process
There is more to Trump’s postponing of the proceedings than merely avoiding his many days of trial. In addition, it seems that he wants to postpone jury decisions until after the general election.
This is probably due to polls that indicate certain people may be less inclined to support him if he has a criminal record. However, should he win in November, Trump may reclaim the executive branch’s authority to halt the two federal prosecutions brought against him—one involving secret materials, the other involving election meddling—or to reverse any convictions.
Many Democrats and legal experts are dissatisfied with this prospect because they believe voters will have time to assess Trump’s guilt and convictions before the election.
At the same time, however, the ex-president is taking advantage of all the channels of appeal and pre-trial motions that would be available to any other American – even if the crush of indictments and trials would be unusual for anyone to face, let alone an ex-president running to get his old job back.
Maryland Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin argued that while Trump’s motives are transparent, the integrity of the legal system that the former president has long sought to subvert rests on sticking to constitutional principles.
“If you are a walking crime wave like Donald Trump, you can trample every criminal, civil, disciplinary, ethical boundary you want and then you know that it’s going to take time for the justice system to catch up with you,”
Raskin
who served on the House committee that investigated the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, told insightsyncs’s Manu Raju on Wednesday. “But that’s in the nature of the justice system, based on due process, but we’ve got to stick by the rule of law. It’s all we’ve got.”
Democrat Jen Jordan, a former state senator from Georgia, said to insightsyncs’s Anderson Cooper that the court was following due process to protect the fairness and efficiency of the trial in the Peach State indictment against Trump and Willis’s case.
Jordan stated on Wednesday that “it’s going to push it back, of course.” “He wants to make sure that the indictment is impenetrable against any future challenges from appellants,” the source said.
Even if Trump’s slow walking has so far been successful in criminal cases, his recent and severe blows to the civil judicial system demonstrate that, even though accountability may sometimes be postponed, it can never be completely avoided. He already owes half a billion dollars to settle two recent legal setbacks: a defamation lawsuit filed by author E. Jean Carroll and a civil fraud trial involving the Trump Organization.
Should any criminal charges go against him as well, should they ultimately get to trial, Trump may have a very dismal future if he loses the election in November.
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