The judgment of Donald Trump for trying to fraudulently reverse his 2020 election loss will begin on March 4, 2024, the day before Super Tuesday, when voters in 15 states are called to vote in the Republican primary. It is called Super Tuesday precisely for this reason, because that day several are concentrated. The nominee usually comes out of Super Tuesday because it is the day that the largest number of delegates are elected. In 2024, no fewer than 865 delegates will leave that day for the national convention (California and Texas alone elect 331). The convention will be held in Milwaukee between July 15 and 18 and, according to polls, Donald Trump is the favorite to win the nomination. In short, there cannot be a worse date to judge a candidate than the day before Super Tuesday.
Of the four pending trials that Trump currently has, the one to be held on March 4 is the one in Washington. The judge Chutkan asked He charged him at the beginning of August and set the hearing date for January 2, that is, just at the end of the Christmas festivities. It seemed hasty to his lawyers, so they requested a postponement of more than two years until April 2026. It seemed to Chutkan that perhaps January was early but that they had to judge as soon as possible, so he took it to 4 of March. The date is final, but Trump’s lawyers can delay it by filing pre-trial appeals, which they surely will.
It is true that the pressures and the plan to alter the result were conceived in Washington, specifically in the White House, but, if there was a crime, that crime was perpetrated in Georgia for what has to be judged there
March 4 was the date he had proposed Fani Willis, the Fulton County District Attorney in Georgia for a very similar trial. She there she is accused of the same and a few other things. In Washington he is accused of four charges, in Georgia more than 30. Chutkan has gone ahead of Willis and two hearings cannot be held simultaneously, so Willis has already announced that he is considering asking the county court to take away trial in October. Trump’s lawyers oppose it and have already advanced that they will ask the judge for a postponement for 2025 or later.
In Georgia, the prosecution has another added problem. One of the defendants, the former White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, has asked to transfer the trial to a federal court since, according to him, if he committed a crime, he did it in Washington and not in Georgia, so he must be tried by a federal court in the District of Columbia. Trump is surely going the same way, but experts in the field are not so clear. It is true that the pressures and the plan to alter the result were conceived in Washington, specifically in the White House, but, if there was a crime, that crime was perpetrated in Georgia for which he has to be tried there.
If he manages to take the Georgia thing to 2025 (which remains to be seen), what he will not get rid of is the trial for the case of Stormy Daniels in New York, which also has a date set for March, the 25th. A city court accuses him of having used money from the 2016 election campaign to silence a porn star named Stormy Daniels (that is her stage name, the stack is Stephanie Clifford), with whom he had intimate relations in 2006. The money, $130,000, was channeled through Michael Cohen, who was his lawyer at the time. Cohen has already gone through the court and was sentenced to three years in prison for tax fraud and financial fraud. The judge in the Stormy Daniels case is named Juan Merchan And it remains to be seen if he keeps the date or postpones it, taking into account that it is very close, only 20 days away, so that if the Washington thing goes on for a long time, both could coincide in time.
The prosecution gives a detailed account of the assault on the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021 by Trump supporters after he warmed their heads at a rally that took place in a park next to the White House.
Two months later, on May 20, the trial is scheduled for the case of the mishandling of classified documentation in the mansion of Mar-a-Lago, which Trump used extensively as his official residence during his tenure. He spent a lot of time there, held countless meetings and even received foreign leaders. When he left the presidency in January 2021, there were many official documents in that house. The authorities claimed them, Trump delivered a few, but others kept them. In August of last year, the FBI had to go in for them and discovered that they were not properly guarded. Trump’s indictment for this case occurred in June, he had to travel to Miami to testify in court and shortly after a date was set for the hearing.
In the Washington case, the one being tried by Tanya Chutkan, the indictment was filed by special counsel Jack Smith on August 1. They charge him with four crimes, including three of some seriousness: conspiracy to defraud the United States, obstruction of an official process and conspiracy against the rights of voters. The prosecution makes a detailed account of the January 6, 2021 assault on the United States Capitol by Trump supporters after he warmed their heads at a rally he gave in a park next to the White House.
This trial is not going to be as harsh as the one in Georgia, but it will fall in the middle of the primary election. That means that while other candidates are campaigning, he will have to sit in the dock in front of a federal court in Washington. The date is surely hasty. It is clear that no one should be above the law and that the personal obligations of a defendant do not determine the date of his trial, but the defendant here is not just anyone, he is a presidential candidate. Trump’s idea of pushing the trial to 2026 was also excessive. His strategy has failed by maximalism, but he needs to not be tried or convicted before he reaches the presidency, which is what he hopes to do if he wins the nomination first.
If Fanni Willis gets the Georgia trial set for October, it will fall into the final stretch of the electoral campaign with Trump and Biden touring the country and seeing each other in several televised debates.
If he wins on November 5, by April 2026 he will have been in the White House for a year and a half and in the event that he is convicted, he will be able to pardon himself. A very risky operation, but at this point he has no choice but to delay the four trials using all the legal tricks at his disposal. Disaster is guaranteed because it doesn’t just have eastern Washington. If Fanni Willis gets the Georgia trial set for October he will fall in the final stretch of the electoral campaign with Trump and Biden touring the country and seeing each other’s faces in various televised debates. That after being tried in May for the Mar-a-Lago documents. By then the primaries will be over and it is very likely that Trump will have more delegates than his opponents. The Florida trial begins on May 20 and less than two months later the convention of Milwaukee.
Will that have an impact on primary voters and later on delegates? Surely yes, but we still don’t know in which direction. One possibility is that they will turn their backs on him and vote for others assuming that Trump is dead and that in a matter of months he will have four final convictions that could land him in prison. Another possibility is that the Republican electorate mobilizes in favor of Trump, that they see this as a hunt against the candidate and support him. Voting for him would be his form of protest. Of course, Trump could have secured the nomination of the Republican Party before the sentence arrives and the voters know if they have convicted him. This would delight the Democrats, which is precisely what they are looking for, for Biden to have to deal with a harassed and discredited Trump, and not with another candidate like Ron DeSantis who, if Trump had not run, would have won the primaries by street.
According to surveys, around 50% of those who will vote in the primaries will do so for Trump, the remaining 50% will do so for another candidate.
Maybe Trump’s legal team find some way to delay the trial from March 4th. Or perhaps he will go before the judge and argue that, because he was president, he enjoyed immunity for that very reason. In the US, a president can only be accused, tried and sentenced by the House of Representatives and the Senate. Presidential immunity is not in the Constitutionbut there is case law on the matter. In 1982 the Supreme Court ruled that the president has absolute immunity (both civil and criminal). Another ruling from 1997 was reaffirmed by delimiting the period: his four years in office from when he takes office until he leaves because another succeeds him.
That gets him out of everything he did in the days after the election because he was still president, but not the classified documents case or the Stormy Daniels case. The first is after he left the White House, the second before. The one with the classified documentation will be judged on May 20 and there you will not be able to resort to this wild card, but in those of Washington and Georgia you will be able to do so. In the event that he is convicted in these two trials, it is certain that he will take it to the supreme court and there they could annul the conviction or not.
But, putting aside Trump’s convoluted legal horizon that greatly complicates his re-election, for the Republican Party all this is a nightmare that will condemn them to remain in opposition for four more years. Surely the most Trumpist Republicans will vote for him with their eyes closed, but this group is not that large. According to surveys, around 50% of those who will vote in the primaries will do so for Trump, the remaining 50% will do so for another candidate. In other words, only half of the Republican electorate belongs to the Trumpist wing, the other half opts for others. If nominated, many of those voters may stay home and Trump’s presence on the campaign trail will mobilize Democrats once again., the same thing that happened in 2020, but this time he will have to campaign from outside and besieged by prosecutors. The temptation to exact revenge for what happened three years ago is powerful, but it could be the undoing of the Republican Party. They would do well to take that into account.
2023-09-02 03:20:57
#impossible #reelection #Donald #Trump
