The Trump Docket: The ‘very puzzling’ issue in Florida and the ‘strange possibility’ of a trial and election occurring simultaneously

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With hundreds of millions of dollars exiting his bank accounts and the possibility of his first criminal trial and others to follow still quite present on the horizon, Donald Trump has been consistently persistent in every venue he faces indictment to seek a delay. And if you ask Eric Columbus, a former litigator with the House Select Committee to Investigate the Jan. 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol, the reason for that is very clear.

“If he loses the election, then there’s really only so far he can go in terms of delaying,” Columbus said in a phone interview with Law&Crime on Friday. “The question is whether we’re going to see a trial before the election. It is possible. If I had to bet, I would say its maybe just a little less than likely.”

Oral arguments at the Supreme Court to determine whether Trump has immunity from criminal prosecution get underway in exactly a month come Monday and a week before, the court will hear arguments in Fischer v. United States, a Jan. 6 case that could have a huge impact on whether Trump’s criminal charges in Washington, D.C., for allegedly conspiring to subvert the 2020 election, will stick or be limited in some way.

“There are some reasons to question the ability of special counsel to proceed if that case comes out in Trump’s favor,” Columbus remarked.

A case, or in Trump’s situation, cases, “of this nature” don’t come along very frequently,” he remarked.

So, what would need to happen for trial to proceed to a verdict before the election, whether it was one in Florida, New York, Georgia or Washington, D.C.?

There’s a “strange possibility a trial could begin before the election but still be going on when the election occurs,” Columbus surmised.

“That’s theoretically possible even with a decision that comes down [on immunity] in late June,” he said. “Its possible they could split the baby and say he doesn’t have absolute presidential immunity but that it is partial immunity depending on what the presidential action is. They could do that in a way that could require [U.S. District] Judge [Tanya] Chutkan, when it gets back to her, to do additional work which could then be appealed itself, so it could be tied up for a while and prevent the weirdness of having a trial beginning but not ending before the election.”

Giving his opinion on the situation in Washington, D.C., Columbus says Trump is very eager to get rid of the case. He believes Trump's lawyers will likely argue to the jurors that even if they don't agree with what Trump did, they should still acquit him because his actions may not fit the criteria of a crime. They might also suggest that unless Congress makes it a crime, the jurors are obligated to acquit him.

Regarding Trump’s classified documents case in Florida, the situation is unclear, especially this week after two proposed jury instructions were called “very puzzling” by Columbus.

The case still relies on Trump's claim that the Presidential Records Act affects the Espionage Act, but Columbus says these are unrelated. The PRA was created to limit presidents' ability to take their records, while the Espionage Act deals with classified documents. The idea that the PRA gave the president a new right to take classified records is ridiculous, according to Columbus.

Trump is making these arguments because he's not a great strategist and lacks strong arguments. The idea that Judge Cannon is entertaining these arguments is disturbing, as shown by a recent ruling.

NEW YORK

CRIMINAL

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg sharply rejected claims by Trump’s attorneys that prosecutors had violated discovery obligations in the hush-money and election interference case — in which he is accused of paying adult actress Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election to keep quiet about their affair — now on hold until April.

While Bragg’s office has conceded that the total amount of “pages” in discovery hovers around 170,000, much of those records were transferred over from the prior federal case involving Trump attorney and fixer Michael Cohen and are duplicative.

“It is more helpful to understand the production as containing 6,871 documents,” Bragg urged presiding New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan.

Trump has requested discovery sanctions against Bragg too as he filed motions to get the case dismissed this week. Bragg insists this another attempt to waylay proceedings indefinitely.

Cohen had a difficult week after a judge rebuked him this week, calling his legal strategy a “perverse” attempt to “spin” an admission that he lied under oath into a reason to be entitled to relief from the rest of his sentence.

OF NOTE: Earlier in the week, Merchan ruled that the infamous Access Hollywood tape can be referenced at trial but not played for the jury and rejected a “presence of counsel” defense.

CIVIL

He’s got $500 million cash, you just have to take his word for it.

That’s what Trump, convicted of civil fraud for falsely inflating the valuations of his properties for years, proclaimed on his social media forum Truth Social on Friday. But his lawyers have spent the entire week saying otherwise in court, telling a judge it was ‘impossible’ to shore up the funds. Trump said online he would rather spend the money on his campaign.

The former president has scrambled and lashed out over being forced to satisfy the $464 million civil fraud penalty he owes New York state, and it is worth noting that New York Attorney General Letitia James started entering judgments in Westchester County weeks ago to begin seizing assets if he ultimately couldn’t pay or secure a bond on the order. Trump’s Seven Springs golf course is located in Westchester County.

Judgments have also been entered preliminarily in Manhattan where the former president holds multiple properties. None have been entered in Florida as of Friday.

Barring any last minute intervention by the New York state appellate court, James will formally start executing the judgment on Monday if Trump cannot come up with the cash or a bond. In the meantime, a monitor, former Judge Barbara Jones, was granted “enhanced” power to scrutinize the Trump Organization’s finances. Trump expended almost 5,000 pages this week asking the appeals court for a stay.

OF NOTE: Trump’s Truth Social merged with shell company Digital World Acquisition Corporation on Friday, potentially infusing the beleaguered indictee with $3 billion. Separately, Trump’s lawyer in Miami has sued ABC and George Stephanopoulos, saying the network host said he was found ‘liable for rape’ over 10 times.

FLORIDA

CRIMINAL 

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon has yet to set a trial date in the espionage case and in her latest order for proposed jury instructions, she controversially ordered jurors to accept that the Presidential Records Act, or PRA, entitled Trump to turn classified documents into his personal effects.

“Absurd.” “Baffling.” “Embarrassing.” Those were just a few of the words former Trump lawyer Ty Cobb used in his critiques of that ruling and others from the judge, saying her handling of the case has been downright confusing and a call for recusal from Special Counsel Jack Smith may be warranted.

Another former federal prosecutor who once publicly declared Cannon should be given “the benefit of the doubt,” has now reversed course, saying the Trump-appointed judge’s consistent “dead wrong” rulings that “always” end up in favor of Trump have changed her mind.

Levels of astonishment were high all around this week.

But she did side with some of the prosecutors’ request to redact, substitute or delete classified information from discovery on Friday.

Meanwhile, government witness and onetime Mar-a-Lago valet Brian Butler — also known as “Trump Employee 5” — shed more light on his interviews with special counsel Jack Smith. When asked recently if he thought he had witnessed a “cover-up” at Mar-a-Lago, Butler replied: “I think it’s very possible.”

OF NOTE: The special counsel found time to respond to a “meritless” argument from a former founder of the Federalist Society hoping to have Smith removed from the case.

GEORGIA

CRIMINAL 

It was another tumultuous week at the Fulton County Superior Courthouse as Judge Scott McAfee agreed that Trump would be allowed to appeal the court’s decision to keep Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis in charge of the sprawling racketeering case.

With the case still in its pretrial phase, Trump is pushing to have the charges dismissed altogether or Willis ousted and totally barred from any further involvement. Willis originally wanted a trial to get underway in August. No formal request has been made by the district attorney to advance those plans as of Friday.

WASHINGTON, D.C.

CIVIL & CRIMINAL & CONSTITUTIONAL

As things tend to be in the nation’s capital, all things intersect.

Matters in Trump’s criminal indictment for allegedly conspiring to subvert the 2020 election hinge on key considerations pending before the Supreme Court. Simultaneously, a recent floodgate once holding back costly civil litigation seeking to hold Trump accountable for injuries caused by Jan. 6, has been opened.

But, for Trump, there was one key question he had for the Supreme Court this week: What about Obama?

In a brief to the U.S. Supreme Court this week, Trump argued he was immune from criminal prosecution because former President Barack Obama “killed U.S. citizens abroad by drone strike without due process” and any attempt to hold him or any other president criminally liable would forever harm the office of the presidency itself.

As the nation waits for the Supreme Court to hear oral arguments on the immunity question on April 25, convicted seditious conspiracist and onetime leader of the Proud Boys, Henry “Enrique” Tarrio has filed a motion indicating he would like to align himself with Trump once again. 

Tarrio, currently imprisoned for 22 years for leading a seditious conspiracy to stop the nation’s transfer of power, asked a judge if he could join the former president’s request to pause all civil litigation seeking to hold Trump responsible for the violence of Jan. 6, 2021. While he admittedly has no dog in the immunity fight, Tarrio is being sued civilly for his role in the events of that day.

OF NOTE: A judge sentencing a particularly violent Jan. 6 rioter who explicitly said he heeded Trump’s “call” to come to Washington, D.C. remarked from the bench this week it wouldn’t take much to envision the former president issuing another call for violence in the coming months.

And Peter Navarro, Trump’s former trade adviser and self-professed orchestrator of a plan to advance fake electors in the 2020 election, reported to prison this week after Chief Justice John Roberts rejected his bid to stay free on appeal of his conviction on two counts of contempt of Congress.