The Latest On The Trump Criminal Cases
We are headed to crunch time on the four criminal cases pending against former President Donald Trump, including two that will determine if Trump is held accountable for his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
Recent polls show that the results in these cases could have a major impact on the 2024 presidential election.
According to a recent Ipsos/Reuters poll, 58 percent of Americans “would not vote for Trump for President in 2024 if he is/has been convicted of a felony crime by a jury.”
And a new poll by Harvard CAPS/Harris found that Trump leads President Biden by seven points, but the result flips to Biden leading Trump by four points, if Trump is convicted in the January 6 case.
The four Trump criminal cases include the Special Counsel’s January 6 case, the Fulton County Georgia 2020 election interference case, the Special Counsel’s Mar-a-Lago documents case, and the Manhattan hush money case.
There are also important Trump civil trials underway, including the New York financial fraud suit against Trump and Trump Inc., and the defamation case by E. Jean Carroll.
But, let’s focus on the criminal cases.
Special Counsel Jack Smith’s 2020 Election Interference Case
This is the most important of the criminal cases and is the key to whether Trump will be held accountable for his role in attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election, including inciting the Jan. 6 Capitol attack.
Trump has been doing everything he can to slow the case down in the apparent hope that he can get the trial postponed until after the election. Assuming he wins the election, Trump could then have his Justice Department drop the case.
The case was scheduled to go to trial on March 4, but Trump’s effort to assert absolute immunity has put the trial on hold, while that issue is resolved.
It is expected that a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals will rule in the coming days on the immunity issue and that they will rule against Trump. Trump could then appeal to the full D.C. Court of Appeals or ask the Supreme Court to review the decision.
The full D.C. Circuit would likely act quickly and leave a decision against Trump in place.
If the issue then goes to the Supreme Court, the Court could reject Trump’s appeal and send the case back for trial or it could accept the case on an expedited basis. If the Court does either of these, the case could still be tried on a timely basis.
But if the Court accepts the case and proceeds on regular order, that could slow their final action until possibly summer and delay the trial until after the election.
In other words, whether Trump stands trial this year in this case will likely be in the hands of the Supreme Court Justices.
The Fulton County, Georgia Election Interference Case
The Fulton County case charging Trump with participating in a conspiracy to subvert the result of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia has been scheduled for an August trial.
But the case has been thrown off course by charges from one of the defendants that the lead attorney in the case is romantically involved with the Fulton Country DA who appointed him, and that both should be disqualified from the case and the case dismissed.
The judge in the case has scheduled a hearing on these charges for February 15. It already appeared unlikely that the Georgia case would be heard before the November election and this has slowed the case even further.
The Mar-A-Lago Documents Case
The Mar-a-Lago documents case is currently scheduled for trial on May 20. This appears to be an open-and-shut case that Trump improperly took classified documents from the White House, stored them at Mar-a-Lago, and refused to return them.
Federal district court judge Aileen Cannon has already been admonished twice by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals for decisions that appeared to wrongly favor Trump.
Given Judge Cannon’s track record, it is highly questionable whether she will manage the proceedings in a way that will permit the trial to begin on time.
The Manhattan Hush Money Case
The Manhattan DA’s case, dealing with Trump’s alleged falsifying of business records and other crimes associated with hush money payments to adult entertainer Stormy Daniels, is scheduled to go to trial on March 25
This is an important case, as these alleged hush money payments could have affected the results of the 2016 presidential election.
It seems likely that this will be the first Trump criminal case that goes to trial.
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Trump has been indicted on 91 counts in the four criminal cases pending against him.
Before they cast their votes on Election Day, voters are entitled to know if Trump, the presumed Republican presidential nominee, has been convicted of criminal conduct.
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Fred’s Weekly Note appears on Thursdays in Wertheimer’s Political Report, a Democracy 21 newsletter. Read this week’s and other recent newsletters here. And, subscribe for free here and receive your copy each week via email.
