Former President Donald Trump was, alongside more than a dozen members of his legal and campaign team from 2020, indicted in Fulton County, Georgia on RICO charges stemming from his response to the election and controversies surrounding it. While many on the left sense an opportunity in the charges to finally “get” Teflon Don, the case could be too unwieldy for her to manage, thus giving Trump room to turn the situation more to his advantage.
Such is what the New York Sun’s Ari Hoffman noted in a recent op-ed in which he described the scope of the attempt to prosecute Trump and speculated on whether it would be too big to properly function, which would spell good news for Trump.
Hoffman first noted the massive scale of the upcoming trial, both in terms of defendants and charges against them, saying, “In choosing to indict 19 defendants on 41 charges, Ms. Willis went big in prosecuting efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in the Peach Tree State. It is a scale to which she claims to be accustomed — a racketeering trial of public school teachers netted 35 defendants, 12 of whom were tried together.”
Continuing, he noted that even Ms. Willis, who planned the legal attack, is now fretting that the sprawling case could splinter as she tries to wrangle it under control, saying, “Now, though, court filings show Ms. Willis fretting over a ‘logistical quagmire’ and, Cassandra-like, alerting the presiding state court judge, Scott McAfee, to the ‘unavoidable burdens on witnesses and victims’ should he splinter her sprawling case. The government’s position is that, like Isaiah Berlin’s hedgehog, it can try one large case, but not many smaller ones.”
For reference, Willis recently warned in a filing that the case could turn into a “logistical quagmire” unless the defendants have to waive their right to a speedy trial if they insist on being split, saying, “Requiring such a waiver as a condition to sever any defendant who has moved for severance on the basis that he or she cannot be ready for trial by late October would prevent the logistical quagmire described above, the inevitable harm to victims and witnesses, and the risk of gamesmanship. such a waiver as a condition to sever any defendant who has moved for severance on the basis that he or she cannot be ready for trial by late October would prevent the logistical quagmire described above, the inevitable harm to victims and witnesses, and the risk of gamesmanship. This Court has already employed an orderly sequence of waivers in the context of arraignment, allowing defendants to avoid personal appearances in exchange for a signed waiver of their arraignment.”
But as Willis frets and tries to deal with a mess of her own making, former President Trump’s legal team is maneuvering to use the slow-motion trainwreck to his advantage. Hockman, noting as much, said, “Trump has fastened on this complexity to push for a more distant trial horizon. He argues to Judge McAfee that ‘requiring less than two months preparation time to defend a 98-page indictment, charging 19 defendants, with 41 various charges’ would violate his ‘federal and state constitutional rights to a fair trial and due process of law.’”
It remains to be seen, however, if Trump and his team can successfully make such an argument and further toss sand in the gears of DA Willis’ case, or if it will move forward full steam ahead and risk becoming the “logistical quagmire” about which she worried.
Trump himself, for his part, has stuck mainly to commenting on political issues on Truth Social. In a recent post, for example, the former president said, “A very important deadline is approaching at the end of the month. Republicans in Congress can and must defund all aspects of Crooked Joe Biden’s weaponized Government that refuses to close the Border, and treats half the Country as Enemies of the State. This is also the last chance to defund these political prosecutions against me and other Patriots. They failed on the debt limit, but they must not fail now. Use the power of the purse and defend the Country!”
Featured image credit: Fulton County Sheriff’s Office
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