No surprise, this weekend, Trump vowed to stay in the race, even if convicted. “I’ll never leave,” he told Politico.
I have said that Trump’s political needs are at odds with his needs as a criminal defendant: Trump can either behave like a normal defendant or he can try to be a right-wing hero and hope that the extremists ultimately gain control.
His behavior this weekend (holding rallies and giving speeches) and the number of Republican elected officials rushing to his defense by repeating his talking points demonstrates that Trump will try to use these criminal prosecutions to solidify his grip on the Republican Party.
Now I’ll answer a few of the questions I’ve been getting.
1. How bad is it that this case was assigned to Aileen Cannon?
Answering this question requires predicting the future, which nobody can do. There are too many variables. I will therefore lay out the future possibilities (and probabilities).
But before we can talk about what might happen, I believe we need to agree on a few facts about the present.
The indictment paints a vivid picture of a person with no control over his mouth who cannot stop himself from spilling his guts to random people about these super cool top-secret defense documents. Trump is not denying the truth of the allegations in the indictment. His strategy is to argue that: (1) he had the right to have the documents and (2) any investigations against him are political witch hunts designed to “rig” the next election against him.
(This is, of course, exactly what he tried to do when pressuring Zelinsky to announce an investigation into the Bidens.)
Trump’s “defenses” will not work in court—and are not intended to work in court.
But these arguments will resonate with people in the right-wing media bubble who have abandoned democracy and instead have embraced an autocrat (or “strongman,” or “demagogue,” or whatever you wish to call him.)
People give up on democracy when they believe that they cannot create the country they want to live in using democratic means. Republicans like Tucker Carlson understand that democracy means all citizens can vote, and if all citizens can vote, white men will lose power. People like Tucker Carlson believe that democracy means they will be “replaced” by “others,” so they abandon democracy.
Once you abandon democracy there is only one alternative: autocracy. Sociologist Max Weber said there are three sources of authority for government: (1) Traditional, or monarchy, (2) Rule of law, or democratic governments, (3) what he calls a charismatic leader, or we might call a demagogue or strongman. Because “traditional” takes time to create, if democracy breaks down, only autocracy can fill the void.
People who abandon democracy often select the Leader who they think will represent their interests and will create the kind of nation they want to live in. They look to this Leader to break the rules and deliver the results they want. (Or they just become apathetic and stop paying attention.)
As of right now, Republicans who have abandoned democracy see Trump as the candidate best able to assume the role of Dear Leader. (They will replace Trump with a different autocrat when Trump is no longer around.)
Once people assume American democracy can’t or won’t work, and they accept Trump as Dear Leader, they are willing to accept Trump’s position is that he had the right to take the documents because he is the True Leader. Moreover, those evil Democrats and Trump haters just want to keep him out of office. (Translation: The Democrats are rejecting the True Leader and want to ruin America.)
In other words, Trump’s “defense” makes sense to True Believers.
And now, let’s lay out future possibilities (and probabilities).
Aileen Cannon, remember, was the judge who made wild and improbable rulings on Trump’s behalf when he filed a lawsuit to shut down the investigation into these stolen documents. She was overturned on appeal and was given a smackdown by the 11th Circuit Appellate court. (The Supreme Court refused to hear the case.) To read more on that, click here.
Trump’s case was assigned to Cannon by a computer algorithm. The idea behind computer-generated assignments is that people should not be able to select their judge. Given what is at stake for criminal defendants, it’s particularly important that prosecutors not be able to pick the judge. Moreover, federal judges have been confirmed by the Senate, so they have a special status.
It is possible (but unlikely) that Cannon will recuse herself.
This is from Joyce Vance: If she doesn’t, it is possible that the DOJ can persuade the Court of Appeals to order the court to reassign the case. Joyce Vance personally litigated a few appeals where she asked the Court of Appeals to order a “reassignment.” She cites precedent in which the 11th Circuit ordered “reassignment” where a judge leans so heavily for a defendant they call their objectivity in the eyes of the public into question.
Here we have rather extreme facts: Cannon was willing to invent new rules for Trump because of his status as a former president. Moreover, the appellate court was clearly not pleased with how she handled the Special Master case.
Because of the sensitivity of prosecutors asking for a different judge, Vance suggests the DOJ lawyers will wait for the first bad ruling from Cannon, appeal, and along with the appeal, ask for her recusal.
So will it happen? Will she recuse or be ordered to recuse? Maybe yes, maybe no. We can take bets.
If she is recused and a normal judge is assigned, I would say there is a better than 95% chance that Trump is convicted. (Here is how I got that number: Federal prosecutors have a 95% success rate, and this case is unusually strong.)
Judges like Aileen Cannon, by the way, are why good prosecutors wait to bring cases when they know they have enough evidence to get a conviction. The stronger the case, the less damage a bad judge can do.
Before we get into the worst case scenario, I’d like to remind you of something from my FAQ page:
#8: At least indicting Trump would provide some very solid schadenfreude.
The “indict him right now!” chants are premised on a misunderstanding of what an indictment actually is. An indictment is a formal accusation. It is the start of a long, harrowing process. . .An indictment, does not mean that we all live happily ever after.
Now let’s assume the worst. Let’s assume that Aileen Cannon oversees the case.
Possibility #1: Cannon felt humiliated by her appellate court smackdown, and now she wants to rehabilitate her image, so she will (try to) act like a normal judge.
Judges do not like to be overturned on appeal, and normal judges calibrate themselves to align with the law as outlined by higher courts. The 11th Circuit clearly stated that Trump is not entitled to special rules because of his status as a former president. A normal judge, therefore, would make sure, going forward, not to give Trump special rules because of his former status.
Moreover, judges in criminal cases are more tightly bound by the rules than judges in civil cases because more is at stake. Pre-trial rulings that are unhinged (like excluding evidence that should be admitted) can be appealed. The defense may try to do sneaky things like force the prosecution to reveal the contents of secret documents to the public which could require derailing the case, so stuff like that may need to be appealed. These will be the normal kinds of delays you can expect.
So if Cannon acts like a normal judge, she may sympathize with Trump, and her sympathies may show, but the jurors will be shown all the evidence, they will hear from the prosecution and will render their decision.
If Cannon acts normally, given the strength of this case and the fact that these are top-notch prosecutors, I’d still expect the prosecution to win.
Possibility #2: Cannon remains on the case. She is furious about her smackdown, she believes the appellate court was wrong, and she goes full-on MAGA.
The worst-case scenario was offered by Ken White, who suggested she may care nothing about normal things like her reputation or public confidence in the judicial system.
In that case, she can wait until the jury is empaneled and dismiss the case, and then, because of the rule against double jeopardy, Trump avoids a conviction.
Hardcore MAGA will celebrate. Everyone else will be enraged: He admitted his guilt in an audio recording, and an unhinged judge dismissed the case, so a jury was never able to make a decision. (“Enraged” may not be strong enough.) The public reaction will not be pretty.
At this point, most people (I hope) will turn their rage into meaningful democracy-building action by doing what they can to ensure that in 2024, the party that gave us Donald Trump and Aileen Cannon will be roundly defeated.
(The fact that there is so much at stake suggests that Aileen Cannon may well be ordered to recuse.)
Here is how this worst-case scenario could endanger our democracy
There will be some (I can name many of them) who will use their platforms to announce that “This miscarriage of justice means that democracy and rule of law in America is dead.”
See the problem with this? If you believe democracy is dead, why bother voting? The danger is that people will turn their anger into destructive (instead of constructive) actions.
Fact: Democracy and rule of law are flawed because human beings are flawed. Democratic societies will always contain members who don’t like democracy. You can’t get rid of them and remain a democracy. (Before you argue with that statement, consider how you might rid of them. There is no way to eliminate democracy-hating people from a society without abandoning rule of law.)
I have often said that democracy in America will survive if enough voters want it to. People hear this and think I am being optimistic because they miss the significance of the word “if” in that sentence.
If both sides of the political spectrum give up on democracy, democracy will have no chance.
(This is not about “faith,” or “hope,” or “optimism.” This is about concluding that democracy, with all of its warts and flaws, is the best form of government.)
Thus, here is how we get to the worst-case scenario:
- Cannon remains on the case (she may not)
- Cannon throws away her reputation and goes full-on MAGA (she most likely won’t, but she might)
- The fearmongers persuade enough voters that democracy is therefore dead and/or doesn’t work. (I would hope that when the time comes to vote, most people who dislike Trump will have the good sense to vote for Biden, even if they irrationally blame the Biden administration for the fact that right-wing extremism continues.)
Well, nobody ever said that maintaining a democracy was easy.
2. Why hasn’t the DOJ searched Bedminster
Predicting the future is hard. Guessing what the DOJ is doing (and why) is harder because we do not have the information they have.
All I can do is make guesses and your guesses are probably as good as mine. It looks from the indictment that there might be probable cause to believe that there are documents at Bedminster, but for all we know, the DOJ has evidence that those documents are no longer at Bedminster.
Because the nation’s top prosecutors are working on this case, I’d say that there is a very low probability that the DOJ made such an obvious error as failing to search a place where there is probable cause to find more classified documents.
(This is not to say “Don’t worry! The DOJ will succeed!” This is to say there is a low probability that this DOJ, considering the work it has done so far, would make such a glaring error.)
3. What about holdout jurors?
This is the problem we want because it means that the worst-case scenario hasn’t happened.
Hold-out jurors are always a possibility, which is why good prosecutors bring air-tight cases (and brash, arrogant, third-rate prosecutors rush forward before overturning every stone in an investigation.)
Jurors don’t always get it right, but I think most litigators will tell you that they do try. (See, for example, this piece.)
Let’s take the example of the hold-out juror in Paul Manafort’s case. The jury returned guilty verdicts on 8 of the 18 charges. One hold-out juror prevented him from being convicted on all 18 counts.
The holdout juror was not the full-on MAGA juror who said, “I did not want Paul Manafort to be guilty, but he was, and no one is above the law.”
When confronted with the evidence, she felt she had no choice but to convict, even if she didn’t want to. The holdout still convicted Manafort on 8 counts.
4. Does the Presidential Records Act offer Trump a Defense?
No. The National Archives did a good explanation here.
I understand that Jim Jordan was on television this weekend telling people that the PRA means that Trump can’t be convicted of keeping secret documents. I am unable to tell whether Jim Jordan is stupid or a shameless liar (or both) but he was spouting legal nonsense.
Thank you Teri!
Trump is a cult leader, no different than Charles Manson or Jim Jones and has approximately 30 million followers. A cult member by definition can not be reasoned with
and a cult member of Trump will follow him all the way to Jones Town in British Guyana and drink cool aid on his command.
I believe there is almost zero chance that he can win 2024 election. We should encourage him to run, he will be humiliated and defeated when he only gets 20% of the votes.
Hunkering down for a protracted and ugly legal battle superimposed by ridiculously partisan politics and a Presidential campaign. Unprecedented. Perhaps the legal battle will not be protracted if the partisan politics manage to take precedence…
I’m guessing Smith has a whole separate list of DC crimes prepped & ready to go should FL fail. He might even announce them soon to let Trump know he’s hot on his trail. Trump has certainly committed enough crimes around the world to keep the Jack Smiths of the universe busy for the next 20 years.
Re: Jim Jordan – I say both stupid & a shameless liar. 🙂
Re: Weber…I love it when stuff I studied in school comes back up & it’s useful. 🙂 🙂 So – to be clear, the second system, based on democracy & the rule of law, is where Weber discusses bureaucracy; the role of the Administrative State. And that results in the MAGA crowd ranting & raving about Deep State conspiracies, and ‘bringing the Deep State to heel!” And they actually disingenuously try to use democracy as their excuse for why they want that to happen… the whole ‘unelected bureaucrats’ debate.
I swear, I have a question about this topic. Here it is.
I am an elected official on a local level. For us, if we put in place a policy & the administrative procedure/the operationalizing of that policy isn’t in line with our intent (or even before that, staff
may say to us – “We’re not sure that will work they way you’re intending it to) we are able to work closely enough with our paid staff to address the problem, either by altering the policy, or discussing ways they could change their process to better align with our strategic objectives.
But how in the heck do you do that at a state/provincial or federal level? I do have some convos with folks who haven’t gone full MAGA who will argue the bureaucracy has gotten out of control & the elected officials who are supposed to oversee their work aren’t doing enough to address that. And I never know quite what to say to them. Thoughts? I know it seems like a tangent, but I do see it as important as part of addressing concerns about the current system.
Last question: Thoughts on the debates re: Trump taking a deal? I don’t think he would anyway, even if it was offered, but wouldn’t trying to settle / get him to plea bargain play into the whole notion of ‘two type of justice’ rants from the far left, and the ‘See it was political,’ arguments from the MAGA side? It feels like DOJ has to take this through the court system. Agree?
/2 The bathroom differs from a storage room in that (a) you can see there’s stuff of interest and (b) you don’t have to break in. It differs from the ballroom stage in that you can lock the door behind you and peruse privately for long periods.
Not widely mentioned: the indictment bathroom picture not only shows boxes in the shower, but that those boxes are visible through the window. Anyone snooping the resort for confidential crumbs would and could go right in there.
Yes, but the whole bathroom/ballroom stage debate is bogus. The documents didn’t belong at the resort in the first place, no matter where he put them. Some locations are worse, like his desk, but only because they prove he knew about the documents.
Excellent overview, thank you! I’m interested to know why a judge has the power to unilaterally decide the evidence isn’t good enough, dismiss a case and prevent the jury from hearing it. In what scenario would such power benefit the system? Is it exercised extremely rarely?
In the case where a rogue jury hates the defendant so much, or is so inflamed by the facts of the case, that they convict the defendant even though it is clear the prosecution hasn’t met the beyond a reasonable doubt threshold.
Or when the prosecution’s case is so bereft of credible evidence that no reasonable jury could find the case proven beyond a reasonable doubt so there’s no point wasting the court’s, the parties’, and the jury’s time having the defense present a case and having the jury deliberate.
“ People give up on democracy when they believe that they cannot create the country they want to live in using democratic means. ”
The five paragraphs following this lead line were extraordinarily powerful, containing one of the best explanations I’ve read for how our nation has reached the point it has reached.
By refusing to voluntarily recuse she sends a signal that she does not intend to be impartial. Therefore, I believe Cannon is either going full MAGA or just short of it.
Many thanks for these clear explanations. I admire your ability to respond to anticipated reactions, before they ever happen. I also admire the many knowledgable people who ask questions about your article, concerning the legal side of how things could play out, or the history of past events. It’s probing and stimulating to see how complex our legal system is, even if it can cause moments of despair. I guess I should have tried for law school, this is all fascinating.
Thank you very much for the analysis.
What are the chances of the delay delay throw stuff at the wall to postpone whatever strategy? Likely to work here?
Also, interplay between prosecutors interstate – sorta comm & collaborate discreetly – think this is happening?
Trump = demagogue = demigod (to prosperity fundamentalist christians)
Well said, and thank you for continuing to set expectations that an imperfect system run by imperfect people (with imperfect jurors) has to run its course.
Ran across an interesting analysis of the federal sentencing guidelines for the crimes Trump was just indicted for
https://www.justsecurity.org/86901/how-much-prison-time-does-former-president-trump-face-applying-the-u-s-sentencing-guidelines/
and it dawned on me that the selection of crimes, and the number of people named as witting or unwitting participants, in the indictment, was possibly designed (rather than accidentally) to reach 37 points and therefore a 20 year (+ / – 2 years) sentence on the Espionage Act charges.
Just a thought.
Even if he is convicted, my understanding is that none of the indictments carry a mandatory minimum sentence; so he can walk away with only a fine and no prison sentence, or no fine and no prison sentence.
Federal sentencing guidelines tightly constrain the judge. If convicted on all counts, Trump will die in federal prison, I expect. Here’s a nice explainer from Popehat: https://www.popehat.com/2013/02/05/crime-whale-sushi-sentence-eleventy-million-years/
Great post as always, Teri. Can’t wait for Part III.
While it is true that there were other laws that Trump was charged under, it is also true that there are no criminal penalties specified in the PRA. That is like catnip to Trump.
Trump feels free to to ignore any law where there is no penalty specified. In his mind, that probably does mean that the PRA allows him to do anything he wants.
When the PRA was passed, Congress believed that simply ordering the President to turn over presidential papers to the National Archives was sufficient. Now that we know that people like Donald Trump can be elected to the presidency, it would behoove Congress to add some teeth to the PRA so that no one like Trump can ignore it with impunity.
Great analysis!
This is excellent as always, Teri, thank you. One question: my impression from media reports (and I might just not be reading them correctly) is that Cannon might preside over the arraignment but NOT NECESSARILY the trial itself. But your post seems to make it clear it’s likely that Cannon will also preside over the trial, too. It seems the only way she will NOT preside over the trial itself is if she recuses or is ordered to do so, right?
She might not even be presiding over the arraignment. She was picked based on a checkmark in a little box made by the clerk.
Teri, I’ve been trying to picture Mr. Trump at the trial. As I understand it, as defendant his main jobs there are to listen to the charges read, and when the judge asks whether he understands the charges to say. “Yes, your honor.” and then when asked how he pleads to say, “Not guilty, your honor.”, and then to sit silently (except for whispered conversations with his attorney), looking calm and attentive until the verdict is read. Smiling pleasantly at the jury is highly recommended also. For this man, that will not be easy, might even qualify as torture. His every instinct will be to attack every witness against him, any juror who looks unkindly at him, even the judge for any ruling perceived as against him. And, no sane lawyer will have him testify, even if he tries to insist.
I am hoping that he does all of his usual mannerisms and destroys any goodwill from any juror.
And, hoping that he goes for some blatant witness tampering, too.
One thing is sure, if he doesn’t do those things in the court room, he will be doing them continuously in his rallies, speeches, and social media. He is still defaming E. Jean Carroll after losing that case and being admonished by the judge to desist and Carroll seeking increased damages.
Thank you for your clear exposition. A question:
DOJ picked 31 documents for this indictment, of the far larger number eventually recovered. Even if they only want trial with “top secret” docs, to balance showing importance without making public ultra secret materials, there are plenty remaining. If Aileen Cannon takes door #2, and it sticks on appeal, can Trump be indicted on mishandling of documents not mentioned in the current indictment?
Thank you, Teri!
I have just one little nit to pick:
Trump did not pressure President Zelinsky to open an investigation against the Bidens. He pressured him to *announce* an investigation against the Bidens.
All Trump wanted was to plant a little, poisonous seed of suspicion, and, for that, an announcement would have been enough.
My hope is the judge realizes she is is a lose lose situation and recuses herself. Bc If she went full Maga she gets bitch slapped by 11th Cir again. If she tries to b a real judge, the Maga nuts will start w the death threats.
If she goes full MAGA -we are fucked. she empanels jury, then dismisses case. Can’t be retried.
Maybe, maybe not.
DOJ almost certainly isn’t done with charges to bring, certainly 1/6 related charges and possibly more documents related charges.
And then there is is the Fulton County DA.
Cannon can’t save Trump from everything coming his way.
True. When the J6 indictment happens, it would almost certainly be in DC, so Cannon wouldn’t be involved at all.
I won’t lie. Cannon felt like a body-blow.
But… I’m very encouraged by what we’re finally seeing of the special prosecutor’s team’s work. Thorough. And with solid evidence that would make any prosecutor weep with joy.
I’m also made less discouraged by just how complete a smack down the 11th Circuit ruling was. It does provide the prosecution something to work with if they choose to request a recusal.
Thank you for laying it all out so clearly.
What are your thoughts on this ABA Journal story on the possibility of Cannon using “a motion under Rule 29 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, which according to the Atlantic, authorizes a federal judge to dismiss a criminal case after the prosecution presents evidence, if the judge finds that the evidence was insufficient to find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt”?
Link to American Bar Association Journal article:
https://bit.ly/3X4won7
If the “worse case scenario” were to unfold, would the dismissal itself be appealable?
Depends on when she does it.
I’ve heard that one of the reasons Aileen Cannon might recuse or be recused, is that the trial looks like it’s going to be in Miami, but Cannon’s court is in Fort Pierce, a hundred miles north. Unlikely (but you never know) that she’d be making a 3 hour daily drive while the trial is going on.
Harry Litman speculates there’s no way this will wrap by Election Day 2024, given all the appeals that could happen.
Teri,
Thanks for the update.
> Possibility #1:
😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀
> Possibility #2:
She might want to in the worst way, but *EVEN FOR CANNON* I think this is too far
*MOST LIKELY* possibility:
She’ll let the defense use voir dire to get a friendly jury, shoot down every prosecution objection she reasonably can and sustain defense objections wherever she can. She can constrain the evidence put into evidence and let the defense put on sketchy stuff. She can do many things.
Actually this is my question as well. What if nothing is clear – what if she acts like a sane judge, enough to not be recused, but then subtly introduces bias? I think the answer to this is for the prosecuter and his team to do the best work possible to overcome that, but I think that is a nightmare half-scenario. Which Teri did mention briefly in her post.
Hi Teri – GREAT articles. I’d like to ask about pretrial release. Pretrial release has determine not only is he going to show, but that he’s not a danger to the community. I think he’s 100% likely to show for trial, so ROR might be appropriate. However, danger to the community. His charges include willful obstruction to subpoena, witness tampering, false statements. Additionally, there is reason to believe (but not stated in indictment) he is continuing to the crimes in the offense, specifically retention (evidenced by clear indication he HAD the Milley-DOD Iran plan in July 2021 yet it hasn’t been recovered in June 2022 or Aug 2022 and a net new subpoena was issued). If we IGNORE the espionage charges (the most serious) and focus ONLY on continuing harm (continued criminality AND obstruction, tampering, false statements) – how should those figure into pretrial release? Under fed guidelines the espionage is NOT a serious crime (not violent, not drug, not capital/life sentence, etc.) so there is no reason. The other charges seem like more an issue. Thoughts?
Mark Joseph Stern argues that the probability of “Cannon goes full MAGA” if she stays on the case is 100%:
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/06/aileen-cannon-federal-prosecution-donald-trump.html
That’s the scary part that worries the hell out of me !
“Imagine, though, that Cannon does preside over this case. She has infinite tools at her disposal to thwart the prosecution at nearly every turn. Big swings, like tossing out the whole case—a very real possibility in her courtroom of chaos—can be appealed and overturned. But at every step, there are opportunities for sabotage. Cannon can try to rig voir dire to help the defense stack the jury with Trump supporters. She can exclude evidence and testimony that’s especially damning to Trump. She can disqualify witnesses who are favorable to the prosecution. She can sustain the defense’s frivolous objections and overrule the prosecution’s meritorious ones. She can direct a verdict of acquittal to render the jury superfluous. She can declare a mistrial prematurely for any number of reasons, including lengthy juror deliberations, and stretch out various deadlines to run out the clock. Many of these procedural moves could not be appealed until the proceedings have drawn to a close; appeals courts do not referee every little dispute in a jury trial as they happen. Cannon will be in control.”
This is so helpful!
We’ll certainly find out more tomorrow after the arraignment, but what is a speedy trial within the federal system, and how long could Cannon postpone things? I thought the timeframe was normally within 70 days which would put the trial later this year, but I’ve also read that Cannon might want/try to push it until after the 2024 election in hopes of Trump once again having the cover of the presidency to hide behind.
With the NY case scheduled for March and pending indictments in GA and DC for election tampering and trying to prevent the peaceful transfer of power, Trump’s court schedule is going to get very crowded.
Clarification on why Bedminster hasn’t been searched. As several former federal prosecutors (Andrew Weissmann, for one) have pointed out, probable cause doesn’t just require evidence that a crime was committed at some point, it requires that the evidence be ‘fresh’, that is, recent. The fact that Trump appears to have brought classified info to NJ in 2021 is not sufficient to create probable cause for a search warrant in 2023. And if you think about it, that’s how you’d want it if it were your house someone wanted to search. So what it tells us is that at the moment, the feds do not have recent evidence of the presence of classified documents in NJ. It could be that they know the documents were moved back to Florida. It could be they just don’t know, and they haven’t (at least not yet – one could reasonably assume they have tried) gotten evidence that docs are still there.
They could also be hoping that Nauta will flip and give them additional evidence for probable cause.
When Canon was reversed, was it the full Appellate Court or a 3 judge panel.
If a panel, it seems unlikely that a request for an order to recuse would draw the same panel.
3 judge panel
And the 3 judge panel was made up of 2 judges appointed by Trump and 1 appointed by W. Hardly a left-wing mob.
Hello Teri, thank you for laying this out clearly and succinctly for us non-legal folks. I am crestfallen that there is even a worst-case scenario. I’m sure Trump’s legal team is already working with judge Cannon to fix the whole thing just as you laid it out. I realize we know very little about the details, but now I’m questioning the whole decision to move the case to Miami. Jack Smith is of course brilliant, and has planned for every possible scenario, but he has no control over what Cannon does. I feel defeated.
Ted, I understand your feelings. I wonder, however, if Jack Smith wanted to undermine Trump’s constant winning about being the victim of the government. In Trump’s mind, he never could get a fair trial. Now Smith has put the trial in Trump’s backyard. I worry about the worst-case scenario, but I have a lot of faith in Smith and his colleagues. All the best.
Smith moved the case to Florida because that’s where the crime occurred. In DC he’d run the risk of having the case thrown out for being in the wrong jurisdiction, but he could still have a separate indictment in DC over the parts of the crime that were committed in the WH i.e. knowingly removing the documents.
Informed sources suggest that Jack Smith preferred the MAGA-infested Florida venue over the normal-American DC venue, because trying to prosecute in DC would open up the ability of trump to object to the DC venue, and delay the start of the trial considerably.
The indictment is pretty bullet-proof (read it!). If judge “Loose” Cannon puts her finger on the scales to get trump off, the Dept of Justice can then roll out new charges relating to trump’s theft of documents stored at Bedminster. This relies on FBI investigations of the criminality at Bedminster, so we hope they have that covered, perhaps by questioning staff there, or even infiltrating an agent posing as an employee there. trump stole and recklessly stored some of America’s most precious secrets, so intense investigative measures are certainly justified.
Is there a potential delay if Trump has difficulty finding competent attorneys? I assume this case requires someone more competent than the average lawyer.
I heard his lawyers will have to obtain security clearances, which will be another source of delay
If the case goes to a jury and the jury is deadlocked (perhaps because of rulings by Cannon that crippled the prosecution case in terms of being able to present everything) and the prosecution decides to re-try the case, does that once again go before Cannon?
What if DOJ do find more documents either in Bedminster or somewhere else outside Florida? Is that a new case that will be filed in the new location, or would it still wind up in Florida? Or, (the answer I expect) does it depend on the details?
I have a speculation (fantasy maybe) that DOJ has a plan to charge the Bedminster case separately – that the FL case has WAY more super-sensitive documents charged than is usual in espionage cases and that it’s sort of a stalking horse–the pre-trial motion practice is likely to take forever. The documents mentioned in NJ aren’t so sensitive and the crimes are in NJ and are charges that are different than what’s charged in FL. If they either have those documents or have a line on how to get them, a new indictment appears in a few weeks and is assigned to a Federal judge in NJ. This indictment is simple & the CIPA procedures much more streamlined. Trump will already have attorneys with, or on their way to having the security clearance and Trump is convicted before the election. (In fact, it would be on this that I believe he would negotiate a plea. Being sentenced to home confinement on a single charge is better than the risk of all the rest piling up until he ended his life in the slammer.. While the Feds can’t make promises on behalf of state prosecutors, I bet there’s a way to get them to hold off & let the charges fade away)
The first part of this was inspired by reading this post by Emptywheel:
https://www.emptywheel.net/2023/06/10/the-mar-a-lago-indictment-is-a-love-bunny/
Would appreciate predictions on the timing – what the phases of going to trial are, and how long they might reasonably be expected to take. Obviously this is extra interesting in the context of the 2024 election starting to spin up. Thanks advance.