Where The Trump Indictments Go From Here

Fred Wertheimer’s Weekly Note | June 15, 2023

With the historic 37-count indictment of former President Donald Trump in Florida last week in the Mar-a-Lago documents case, Trump has now been indicted twice. He currently faces two more potential criminal indictments.

The first indictment, filed by the Manhattan District Attorney in April for falsifying business records and other crimes associated with a hush money payment to Stormy Daniels, is scheduled to go to trial next March.

The trial schedule for last week’s indictment filed by Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith for Trump’s dealings with classified and top-secret documents has not been set.

An indictment of Trump is also quite possible in Fulton County, Georgia for his attempts to overturn Joe Biden’s Georgia victory in the 2020 presidential election. This investigation includes the use of fake electors in trying to achieve a Trump victory in the Georgia race.

A decision by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis on whether to indict Trump and others is expected in August.

The other potential indictment facing Trump is in Washington, DC by the Justice Department’s Special Counsel. This is the largest potential case Trump faces.

That investigation deals with Trump’s involvement in the effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and the January 6 insurrectionist attack on the Capitol.

There is no indication about when the Special Counsel will decide on whether to proceed with an indictment, but the decision will likely happen sometime in 2023.

Thus, by the end of the year Trump might be defending against four different indictments in four different jurisdictions – in New York, Florida, Georgia, and Washington, DC.

That could be a very heavy load for Trump to carry.

The Florida case has drawn immediate attention because federal Judge Aileen Cannon has been assigned to the case. Cannon was the Judge in a case brought by Trump last fall against the government challenging the Mar-a-Lago documents investigation.

Judge Cannon made rulings in that case that were biased in Trump’s favor. In deciding two appeals of her rulings by the government, the 11th Circuit three-judge panel – made up of three Republican-appointed judges, including two appointed by Trump – severely criticized Judge Cannon and overturned her rulings.

The panel found that her approach “would be a radical reordering of our caselaw limiting the federal courts’ involvement in criminal investigations” and “violate bedrock separation-of-powers limitations.”

Judge Cannon should, but is unlikely to, recuse herself from presiding over the current case.

However, if she makes any wrongful rulings in the current case, like she did in the earlier case, the government could file a motion with the 11th Circuit asking the Chief Judge to reassign the case to another judge.

Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill nearly all congressional Republicans are lining up behind Trump.

They are using every diversionary tactic in the book to try to blame Trump’s problems on the Democrats, on President Biden, on Attorney General Merrick Garland, on Special Counsel Jack Smith, and others.

Their argument is that it’s everyone’s fault – but Trump’s.

What is missing, however, is any meaningful defense of Trump on the merits of the case. That’s because it’s not possible. Trump has publicly admitted he did just about everything he is charged with.

There has never been anything like this in our history.

Trump is a former President who has been impeached twice, indicted twice, faces two more potential indictments, has been held liable for sexual abuse, and is facing a civil trial that could end his business operations in New York, among other lawsuits.

Throughout his life, Trump has avoided accountability for his actions. That may be coming to an end.

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Fred’s Weekly Note appears each Thursday 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.