Trump Would Like To Have Classified Docs Trial After Election Or Never, If That's More Convenient?

Never works for him.

You're gonna faint when you hear this, but Donald Trump doesn't want to have his trial for stealing secrets from the government and refusing to give them back to happen until after the election. You know, because he is a delusional ass and he thinks he is going to "win" again. And then you can't even have a criminal trial, because he'll be president!

Does that work for everyone? Does that work for make-believe clown judge Aileen Cannon? He doesn't need a speedy trial. He wants a "long time from now or maybe never" trial.

Trump's lawyers — whichever ones he has at the moment, shruggie emoticon — argued in a filing last night that all the "substantive motions" need to be resolved before they get going. Which "substantive motions"? Oh just all the ones what get brought, which we are sure you will find very substantive, and which are going to take a very long time. Read the full filing if you want, or skip it because you DGAF.

So will Aileen Cannon be like yes definitely you betcha, it is CONSTITUTION GROWN-UP JUDGE REQUIRED for this trial to take a very long time, preferably until after Trump figures out if he can steal the 2024 election? (The filing doesn't say the quiet parts quite so explicitly.) Or will she act like a real judge? Oh, the suspense!

Some of the former president’s advisers have been blunt in private conversations that he is looking to winning the election as a solution to his legal problems.

You think? Of course, you'd think it might be relevant for the New York Times to specify to whom he's speaking so bluntly, instead of letting them hide behind anonymity. Seems germane to the trial, no?

The filing is full of obvious bullshit you'd only believe if you huff paint out of Trump's asscrack on a regular basis:

“The court now presides over a prosecution advanced by the administration of a sitting president against his chief political rival, himself a leading candidate for the presidency of the United States,” they wrote.

Get fucked. The attorney general appointed a special counsel to investigate with the utmost impartiality, and this administration wouldn't have been unreasonable to ship Donald Trump to Guantanamo the second he incited a terrorist attack against the country. Instead, everything is playing out exactly by the book, in all the cases against him, including those where the indictments haven't dropped yet.

“President Trump is running for president of the United States and is currently the likely Republican Party nominee,” they wrote. “This undertaking requires a tremendous amount of time and energy, and that effort will continue until the election on Nov. 5, 2024.”

Eat shit. Pretty much everyone should understand at this point that Trump only announced he was running for president when he did so that he could scream early and often that any efforts to hold him accountable for his thousands of crimes against the United States and humanity were "ELECTION INTERFERENCE!"

“Mr. [Walt] Nauta’s job requires him to accompany President Trump during most campaign trips around the country,” they continued. “This schedule makes trial preparation with both of the defendants challenging. Such preparation requires significant planning and time.”

Idea: Perhaps Trump's indicted co-conspirator in obstructing the government's efforts to recover the state secrets Trump stole shouldn't be allowed to work inside Trump's ass while this is all playing out.

That whole section is really pretty funny:

"President Trump is running for President of the United States and is currently the likely Republican Party nominee. This undertaking requires a tremendous amount of time and energy, and that effort will continue until the election on November 5, 2024. [...] Such preparation requires significant planning and time, making the current schedule untenable and counseling in favor of a continuance."

That's right, Trump cannot possibly be bothered to face criminal accountability right now, or for at least more than a year longer than the Department of Justice wants, or maybe never.

As the Times explains, Special Counsel Jack Smith has asked for a trial date of December 11, while Cannon had been pushing for it to happen even faster, in August. There are a number of issues at play, in particular regarding how classified information will be dealt with during the trial. Also some bullshit Trump's lawyers are arguing, about how there's just too much evidence for them to possibly get through, blah blah blah. Updates are playing out in court this morning. 

Harry Litman makes the key point here, though:

— (@)  

Litman tweets, "This is a very telling moment for Judge Cannon, and she has an obvious move. One party has submitted a schedule; the other hasn’t. She should just adopt the one schedule that is in front of her. There’s no halfway point to choose, which is part of trumps brazen strategy."

Remember how Jack Smith may well have a bunch more indictments up his sleeve just in this classified docs case if Trump and/or his chosen judge decide to act out, which could certainly include trying to delay the trial until never? And he maybe could bring some indictments in federal court in New Jersey, where Aileen Cannon can't even put her grubby hands on them?

Gonna be interesting to see what happens if they decide to fuck around and find out.

[ New York Times / filing ]

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