by Steven Richards
At one time, unfavorable outcomes in the four court cases against former President Donald Trump seemed likely to be politically damaging for the three-time campaigner, but as the cases have faced scrutiny and delays, public opinion has recently shifted.
Yesterday, the Georgia Appeals Court agreed to hear an appeal in the state election case brought by controversial Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. Earlier this week, a Florida judge indefinitely suspended the federal trial in the classified documents case.
With the federal January 6 case delayed until the Supreme Court rules on an immunity argument it heard this spring, Trump is now set to see significant delays in three of the four court cases arrayed against him by both state and federal prosecutors. Only the New York so-called “hush money” trial is ongoing, though key witnesses such as porn star Stormy Daniels have appeared to undermine aspects of the case.
The delays come as the 2024 election fast approaches. The former president—and now the presumptive Republican nominee—has been plagued by the court cases since early 2023 frequently hampering his efforts to campaign. After recent developments, three of those cases appear increasingly likely to be delayed until after the November election, which bodes well for his campaign.
“President Trump has established a commanding polling lead in the battleground and Crooked Joe Biden is on the ropes. His Democrat party allies know it, so they continue to ramp up their ongoing Witch-Hunts, further abusing and misusing the power of their offices to interfere in the presidential election,” Steven Cheung, Communications Director for the Trump 2024 campaign said in a statement to Just the News Wednesday.
“President Trump and his team will continue to fight these unconstitutional hoaxes in the courts and the American People will ultimately hold Crooked Joe and his comrades to account this Fall,” he added.
When the Georgia Appeals Court on Wednesday agreed to hear an appeal from Trump’s lawyers in his Georgia election interference case, it marked the latest in a series of delays in the state case.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who brought charges against Trump in August 2023, accused him and several co-defendants of a racketeering conspiracy to undermine the election outcome in Georgia in 2020.
The first delay came when one of Trump’s co-defendants in the case raised accusations that District Attorney Fani Willis had engaged in an improper romantic and financial relationship with the lead prosecutor, Nathan Wade. She is alleged to have benefited personally from that relationship.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, who is presiding over the case, held hearings to assess calls for Willis to be disqualified. McAfee ultimately ruled that the District Attorney’s conduct was improper and that either Willis or her prosecutor, Wade, would have to step down from the case. Wade complied with the order, leaving Willis in place.
Trump and his co-defendants immediately moved to appeal his decision, which McAfee granted. Now that the Georgia Appeals Court has accepted that interlocutory appeal, it is likely to lead to even further delays.
Earlier this week, U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon postponed the May 20 start date of the classified documents trial indefinitely in the face several pre-trial motions occupying the calendar.
“The Court also determines that finalization of a trial date at this juncture—before resolution of the myriad and interconnected pre-trial and CIPA [Classified Information Procedures Act] issues remaining and forthcoming—would be imprudent and inconsistent with the Court’s duty to fully and fairly consider the various pending pre-trial motions before the Court, critical CIPA issues, and additional pretrial and trial preparations necessary to present this case to a jury,” Cannon wrote in her order.
“The Court therefore vacates the current May 20, 2024, trial date (and associated calendar call), to be reset by separate order following resolution of the matters before the Court, consistent with Defendants’ right to due process and the public’s interest in the fair and efficient administration of justice,” she added.
This announcement marked a win for the Trump team, which had previously asked the judge to delay the case until after the 2024 election, which she declined at the time.
The Trump team brought forward another issue this week that could also further hold up the trial.
On Monday, Trump filed a new motion in the case drawing attention to the government’s admission that “the prosecution team has failed to maintain the integrity of the contents of at least some of the boxes obtained from Mar-a-Lago.”
In a filing submitted in response to an effort by Trump co-defendant Walt Nauta to further delay the case, Smith admitted that this team did not properly preserve the evidence collected during the Mar-a-Lago raid.
“Because these inventories and scans were created close in time to the seizure of the documents, they are the best evidence available of the order the documents were in when seized. That said, there are some boxes where the order of items within that box is not the same as in the associated scans,” the prosecutors wrote.
In the footnote explaining this, the government also admitted that this “is inconsistent with what Government counsel previously understood and represented to the Court.”
Getting to the bottom of this admission, which the Trump legal team alleges is “an extraordinary breach of [the prosecutors’] constitutional and ethical obligations,” threatens to take up more of Judge Cannon’s available time even as the election approaches. PJ Media reported that the FBI “staged” photographs after the raid on Trump’s Florida Mar-a-Lago estate, saying that the DOJ claimed in an August 2022 court filing, “[Thirteen] boxes or containers contained documents with classification markings, and in all, over one hundred unique documents with classification markings… were seized. Certain of the documents had colored cover sheets indicating their classification status.”
According to PJ Media, it turns out that the Department of Justice released a photograph depicting alleged contraband seized from Donald Trump’s Palm Beach estate that day; the image showed colored sheets representing classification levels attached to files purportedly discovered in Trump’s private office. Now the DOJ says “[If] the investigative team found a document with classification markings, it removed the document, segregated it, and replaced it with a placeholder sheet. The investigative team used classified cover sheets for that purpose.”
The former president’s other federal case, in which Trump was charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States and various types of obstruction related to alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, has also faced speed bumps.
The trial was originally scheduled to begin on March 4, but Trump appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States, asking them to grant him broad immunity from prosecution related to the privileges of the presidential office.
The high court announced in February that it would hear the case and examine “whether and if so to what extent does a former president enjoy presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for conduct alleged to involve official acts during his tenure in office,” according to NBC News. Trump’s claims were originally rejected by an appeals court that he was not immune.
The court heard arguments in the case in late April, but has not yet ruled on the matter. In questioning, analysts believed the Justices seemed hesitant to grant broad immunity claims, but appeared likely to grant narrow immunities stemming from the office.
Regardless of the court’s ruling, the proceedings have significantly delayed the start of the trial, now more than two months since the original planned start date.
– – –
Steven Richards joined Just the News in August 2023 after previously working as a Research Analyst for the Government Accountability Institute (GAI) in Tallahassee, Florida.
Photo “Donald Trump NYC” by Daniel Scavino Jr..
