The delays continue to pile up
Donald Trump’s hush money case in New York — the only one of his four criminal cases that looked likely to go to trial soon — suddenly faced the likelihood of a delay today when a large amount of potential new evidence abruptly became available.
News of the likely postponement came as the former president was in federal court in Florida for a separate hearing in another case — the one in which he is accused of mishandling classified documents, which even now has no set start date.
Tomorrow, a judge in Georgia is expected to rule in another of four cases on whether to disqualify the prosecutor who accused Trump and a group of his allies of tampering with that state’s 2020 election results – a decision that could be crucial in the fight against the elections. determine whether the case will go to trial this year, or not at all.
And in Washington, prosecutors and Trump’s lawyers are preparing for a showdown at the Supreme Court, which will hear arguments next month on Trump’s claim that he is immune from charges in the federal indictment accusing him of conspiring to overturn his election loss. Undo 2020. That case was originally scheduled to go before a jury this month.
The latest complications highlight how the justice system is struggling to balance fairness and speed against the backdrop of a calendar shaped by the presidential campaign. All four cases in recent weeks have somehow become further embroiled in procedural or substantive issues that have led to delays.
Time is everything
The issue of timing is critical in Trump’s prosecutions. After all, Trump is a unique defendant.
He secured enough delegates this week to ensure he will be the Republican nominee for a third straight election, and if he wins in November he would be able to use the powers of his office to push back the charges he faces. is facing away or postpone all trials until after he leaves office. And if he doesn’t appear in court in some or all four cases before voters go to the polls, Americans will choose their next leader without having a chance to hear all the evidence or have a jury determine his innocence or guilt to establish.
Some cases continue to progress, albeit slowly. At a hearing today in the classified documents case, Judge Aileen Cannon rejected one of Trump’s many requests to dismiss the charges.
The hush money trial, which was scheduled to begin on March 25, is just the latest case to be delayed. The surprising development came after the Manhattan district attorney’s office, which is handling the prosecution, proposed a delay of up to 30 days so the Trump team could review a new set of documents.
District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office tried to obtain the records from federal prosecutors in Manhattan from a separate investigation they conducted several years ago into the hush money payments, but only recently received them.
Trump, who has used a variety of tactics to delay his legal proceedings, asked for a 90-day delay to review reportedly tens of thousands of pages of new material. It is now up to the judge in the case, acting Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan, to decide what should be done, although the fact that both sides in the case agree that there should be some form of delay means that this will almost certainly happen.
Merchan could give both parties what they want, or choose a grace period somewhere between their requests. Either way, it would mean the trial would start at least a month later than originally planned — potentially creating a cascading effect on the timing of the other trials in the heat of a presidential campaign unlike any other.
Your questions
We ask readers what they want to know about the Trump cases: the indictment, the proceedings, the key players or whatever. You can submit your question to us by completing this form.
If Trump were to win on November 5, could a trial not continue before he took office on January 20, because he would not yet be president? –Claire Keller, River Vale, New Jersey.
Alan: In short, yes. Any lawsuit against Trump could continue until Election Day, right up to the time of his inauguration — and possibly beyond. If Trump were to win the election, he would have the power on January 20, 2025, to order his new attorney general to dismiss any federal charges he faces and could try to delay any state charges in a number of different ways. . But none of that would happen automatically. It would require him or his lawyers to take action, and those actions could take some time to derail things.
Where is each criminal case?
Trump is at the center of at least four separate criminal investigations, at both the state and federal level, into matters related to his business and political career. Here’s where each case currently stands.