The Trump Trials: Double Hearings Thursday, Awaiting Supreme Court Action

A lot happened over the past seven days in the former president’s criminal and civil cases, and this week promises to be just as packed.

Now buckle up, buttercup, here we go.

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What’s ahead

Thursday will see not one but two key hearings in Trump criminal cases.

In New York, Justice Juan Merchan is expected to say whether he will go ahead with a March 25 start date to try Trump on charges he falsified business records regarding hush money payments to an adult film actress in 2016. Given recent events in Trump’s other cases, it’s looking increasingly likely that Merchan’s case will be Trump’s first criminal trial – and America’s first trial of a former president.

In Atlanta, a different judge will grapple with allegations that a romantic relationship between the district attorney and her deputy was improper and tainted the charging of Trump and 18 others over their efforts to undo the 2020 vote count in Georgia.

– We are also waiting on a Supreme Court ruling over Colorado’s decision to remove Trump from the 2024 ballot as an insurrectionist. Based on oral argument last week, Trump seems poised to win that fight by a wide margin.

– Speaking of the Supreme Court, we may see Trump’s lawyers appeal their loss in federal appeals court on his claims of presidential immunity (more on that below).

– But wait, there’s more! Up in New York, Judge Arthur Engoron is supposed to rule soon on how much Trump and his companies must pay for misstating the value of properties in his business empire – a civil case in which the state attorney general is seeking hundreds of millions of dollars.

Now, a recap of last week’s court action.

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D.C.: Federal case on 2020 election

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: An appeals court panel ruled 3-0 that Trump’s claim to be immune from federal prosecution on charges he conspired to obstruct the results of the 2020 election is, well, hogwash.

That defeat is a partial victory for Trump because he is eating up a significant amount of clock on the court calendar, a key part of his legal strategy to delay these trials if he can’t stop them outright. The D.C. trial is on hold until the appeal is resolved, although the panel opened the door to allowing the trial judge to resume proceedings if Trump doesn’t file his appeal to the Supreme Court by Monday.

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Georgia: State case on 2020 election

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: Ahead of Thursday’s hearing about a romantic relationship between District Attorney Fani Willis and Nathan Wade, her deputy on the case, a defense attorney filed court papers refuting the couple’s claims – also in court papers – that the relationship only began after she hired him.

Friday’s filing by the defense lawyer who first leveled the accusation said a former business associate of Wade will offer evidence the relationship started earlier. This entire fight could get much more serious if any of the lawyers involved are found to have made false claims to the court.

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Florida: Federal classified documents case

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: May 20

Last week: Trump’s defense team didn’t waste any time arguing in a court filing that last week’s report from a different special counsel – finding President Biden’s mishandling of classified documents did not amount to a crime – meant that Trump’s charges should be dismissed.

Separately, special counsel Jack Smith and Trump’s legal team are engaged in a heated battle over whether the names of witnesses and others involved in the case should be made public.

So far, Judge Aileen M. Cannon has sided with the defense to allow names to be unsealed. Last week, Smith asked her to reconsider, saying that unsealing the names “would disclose the identities of numerous potential witnesses, along with the substance of the statements they made to the FBI or the grand jury, exposing them to significant and immediate risks of threats, intimidation, and harassment.”

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New York: State hush money case

The details: 34 charges connected to a 2016 hush money payment.

Planned trial date: March 25

Last week: The Manhattan district attorney’s office handling the case seemed on the verge of getting drawn into the separate civil lawsuit against Trump and his company over misstating the value of company assets.

After published reports of a possible guilty plea to perjury by former Trump financial chief Allen Weisselberg, the judge overseeing the civil case pressed lawyers to tell him if they had any information about the possibility Weisselberg lied in his courtroom during the Trump Organization fraud trial.

It’s unclear how much Engoron’s quest for answers to that question may delay his decision in the case.

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Question Time

Q: Why didn’t Justice Clarence Thomas recuse himself from the Colorado case in front of SCOTUS questioning whether Trump should be disqualified from the state’s ballot because of his actions around the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol?

A: Some Democrats in Congress called on Thomas to recuse himself because of his wife’s involvement in efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. Others have said that his wife, Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, is allowed to express her opinion on matters before the court.

The SCOTUS ethics code asks justices to disqualify themselves if their “impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” But it’s up to individual justices to decide. Recusals are rare – in part because, unlike in lower courts, there are no alternative justices and that could risk leaving the court in a 4-4 tie situation. Thomas did not recuse himself and, as the most senior member of the court, asked the first question at oral arguments.

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Nerd word of the week

Self-executing – If you listened to oral arguments on Thursday, you heard the justices ask a lot of questions about whether Section 3 of the 14th Amendment is self-executing. In other words, SCOTUS was asking if the provision, which bars insurrectionists from holding office, is automatically enacted and enforceable – or whether it requires an act of Congress to determine how it is to be enforced.

Trump’s lawyers argued that Colorado did not have authority to boot Trump off the ballot based on this provision since it is not self-executing. The plaintiffs lawyers argued the opposite and said it is self-executing and Congress would not need to intervene to disqualify Trump from the ballot.

(c) 2024, The Washington Post · Devlin Barrett, Perry Stein