Trump faces half-billion dollar deadline Monday, and hush money hearing – The Washington Post
Welcome back to the reality-based reporting of The Trump Trials newsletter, our weekly effort to keep readers up to date on the many criminal and civil cases the 45th president is fighting in federal and state courts.
This week saw a court order from Judge Aileen M. Cannon that got curiouser and curiouser the more lawyers and former judges read it — with one expert comparing it to a line from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland about believing impossible things.
Have questions on the upcoming trials? Email us at perry.stein@washpost.com and devlin.barrett@washpost.com and check for answers in future newsletters.
Okay, it’s late, so follow us down the rabbit hole …
Monday will be busy. First, there’s a hearing scheduled in Donald Trump’s New York hush money trial, where his lawyers will ask the judge to punish the prosecutors for not turning over potential evidence until earlier this month. The unexpected twist in the case has already pushed back the start of the trial, and the hearing will reveal how concerned the Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan is about the issue, and what, if any, further consequences there will be.
Now, a recap of last week’s action in Trump’s criminal cases.
The details: 34 charges connected to a 2016 hush money payment.
Planned trial date: No sooner than April 15.
Last week: Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg filed court papers defending his office’s handling of evidence recently turned over by their federal counterparts a few blocks away. Trump’s lawyers say the late revelations, coming so soon before what had been the planned March 25 trial date, should lead to dismissal of the charges and sanctions for the prosecutors.
Bragg called Trump’s accusations against him a “grab bag” of nonsensical legal arguments, or, as they say in Wonderland: “Let us both go to law: I will prosecute you — Come, I’ll take no denial; We must have a trial.”
Inapposite: Prosecutors love to use this word to describe their adversaries’ arguments; when a lawyer wants to tell a judge that a past legal decision being cited by the other side is not pertinent or comparable to the facts of the case, they often call it inapposite. In the New York case, the “inapposites” have been flying in recent weeks as the two sides argue over the significance of more than 100,000 pages of potential evidence that was recently provided by federal prosecutors.
The details: Trump faces 13 state charges for allegedly trying to undo the election results in that state. Four of his 18 co-defendants have pleaded guilty.
Planned trial date: None yet
Last week: Judge Scott McAfee granted defense lawyer requests to allow them to appeal his decision earlier this month that District Attorney Fani T. Willis could stay on the case — as long as the subordinate with whom she had a romantic relationship left. That prosecutor, Nathan Wade, resigned in the wake of the judge’s decision.
McAfee found that his ruling on Willis and Wade “is of such importance to the case that immediate review should be had,” beginning what could be months of continued legal wrangling over the accusations of unprofessional conduct. Still unclear is whether that appeals process will further stall the district attorney’s prosecution.
Q. Trump faces criminal charges in four separate cases, why isn’t he in jail now while he waits for trial?
A. In Wonderland, the queen liked to shout “off with her head,” and insist the sentence should come before the verdict. “Stuff and nonsense,” Alice said, “The idea of having the sentence first.” The U.S. legal system largely agrees with Alice, and says the only reasons to put someone in jail before a trial is if they pose a risk of flight, or a danger to the community.
No prosecutor has argued Trump poses either. As far as a flight risk, the former president is a unique defendant in that the government, in the form of the Secret Service, knows exactly where he is at all times. In addition, he is again running for president. White collar defendants who are not flight risks rarely have to go to jail before their trials, and Trump is no exception.
The details: Trump faces 40 federal charges over accusations that he kept top-secret government documents at Mar-a-Lago — his home and private club — and thwarted government demands to return them.
Planned trial date: Still waiting for the judge to decide
Last week: Judge Cannon raised eyebrows and alarms among national security experts by ordering lawyers in the case to submit proposed jury instructions under two different legal theories — neither of which, experts said, were accurate applications of the laws regarding classified documents.
Experts increasingly worry Cannon is setting the table for a trial that would look like a Mad Hatter tea party — a gathering run by a broken clock, in which everyone inexplicably switches seats. And at the rate she’s going, that party may not happen this year.
The details: Four counts related to conspiring to obstruct the 2020 election results.
Planned trial date: Unclear (was March 4, but that’s been delayed)
Last week: The case continues to slumber while it awaits a ruling from the Supreme Court on whether Trump is immune from prosecution. There’s a decent chance that a high court ruling in late June would set the stage for a trial to happen in late summer.
Trump draws himself closer to Jan. 6 defendants as he awaits trial
Former imprisoned Trump aide Paul Manafort eyed for role in 2024 race
What could happen as Trump faces nearly half a billion dollar deadline
‘Very, very troubling’: Ex-judges, lawyers flummoxed by Judge Cannon