Smith Goal: Complete Trial Before Election
Trump and six other co-conspirators are mentioned in the indictment, but only Trump is identified by name and actually charged. Commentators suggest this means Smith is keeping it simple to move it quickly through court. It seems Smith is determined to complete this trial before the election. He'll likely charge unnamed co-conspirators later in separate indictments.
This renders moot the question about the documents trial in Judge Cannon's court being delayed until after election day. In fact, today's indictment may push the documents trial further back because DOJ wants Trump to face the 2020 election interference charges first. in Today's indictment:
- There are no co-defendants to be flipped or otherwise involved in the trial.
- There are no classified documents to sort through or otherwise deal with.
- There are not dozens of counts, only four.
- No claims of partisan bias will stick. Every witness that will be called to testify against Trump will be a Republican.
- There will be no questions of attorney-client or executive privilege that cannot be quickly resolved. Those have already been resolved by courts at all levels.
- The venue is unquestionably appropriate since the crimes charged were committed by Trump in Washington.
- There will be no motion to move the trial to federal court. It already is in federal court.
- A motion for the judge to recuse will be quickly denied and that will be quickly upheld. There is no basis justify recusal. The judge's previous Jan 6 rulings have all stood.
- Motions made with the intention to delay the trial will not be tolerated by this court or the DC Court of Appeals. They have been subjected many times before to this Trump tactic and they are on to his game.
- Judge Cannon's court already decided to schedule a trial before the election. She rejected Trump's argument that he could not get a fair trial while he was running for president.
While Trump will likely do everything he can to delay this trial, he has few cards to play. I believe we will see Trump on trial in court before the election.