The Trump Trials: In New York, Don’t Save The Date

We’ve shredded our Trump Trials calendar and thrown away all the tiny pieces as we try to figure out when Donald Trump will sit for his first – or any! – criminal trial. Georgia? No date set. D.C.? Nope, that trial can’t start until the Supreme Court rules on presidential immunity. Florida? Still waiting for a date there, too.

New York? Oof. We’ll explain below how what looked like the locked-in March 25 start date in the Big Apple just blew up.

Okay, stay calm, and let’s get started.

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What’s ahead

It’s been more than two weeks since Judge Aileen M. Cannon held a hearing in her Florida courtroom to determine when the trial over Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified materials should start. She has yet to issue her decision – and it could come any day now. Or not.

– We are also waiting to see how Cannon will rule on Trump’s half-dozen-plus motions to dismiss the case – and if she will schedule additional hearings on his requests. She held a hearing last week on two motions, quickly rejecting one. A decision on the second motion could come at any time.

In New York, we’re expecting an appeals court to decide whether to delay Trump’s $450 million-plus civil judgment in a business fraud lawsuit brought by the New York attorney general, while prosecutors and defense attorneys in the criminal hush money trial prepare for a March 25 pretrial hearing on newly released potential evidence.

Here’s a recap of last week’s action in the four criminal cases:

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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, but that date is no more.

– Last week: New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan delayed Trump’s hush money criminal trial until at least mid-April after 100,000 pages of new potential evidence – known as discovery – was handed over to the defense two weeks before the trial was due to begin. So instead of jury selection March 25, the judge will hold a hearing that day to discuss the issue and weigh Trump’s request to throw out the case or bar key government witnesses from testifying against him.

Exactly what the potential evidence is – and why it wasn’t turned over by federal prosecutors until so close to the trial – is still unclear. But this all stems from the fact that years before the Manhattan district attorney pursued this case against Trump, it was the focus of a federal investigation that led to a guilty plea by Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen. Trump was not charged in the federal case.

Trump’s lawyers claim the evidence from the federal case was unfairly withheld from them until the 11th hour as they prepared their defense.

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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 (it was March 4, but that has been delayed until at least late summer).

– Last week: Pretrial proceedings are frozen until the Supreme Court rules on Trump’s claim to be immune from prosecution for conduct while he was president. Oral argument is April 25, and a decision must come by June or early July.

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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: We got some closure in the months-long drama over whether Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D) should be booted from the case for allegedly benefiting financially when she had a relationship with a subordinate, Nathan Wade, she hired to work on the case. Judge Scott McAfee’s ruling Friday morning gave Willis and Wade a choice: Either Willis and her office could leave the case, or Wade could resign.

– Unsurprisingly, Wade resigned soon after, saying he wanted to ensure the case moves forward “as quickly as possible.”

– The judge’s ruling did not absolve Willis. McAfee called her actions “a tremendous lapse in judgment” but said the evidence did not merit her removal.

Separately, McAfee dismissed three of the 13 charges filed against Trump and some charges against his co-defendants, saying the indictment was not specific enough about what crimes Trump and his allies allegedly pressured Georgia state officials to commit.

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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, but that’s all but certain to change.

– Last week: Cannon listened to hours of arguments about Trump’s claims that he should not be prosecuted because a) the Presidential Records Act, or PRA, gives him the power to declare highly classified documents his personal property, and b) the Espionage Act is too vague to be used against the former president.

Before the day was over, Cannon had rejected Trump’s Espionage Act argument. Her comments at the hearing suggested his PRA claims would fare no better.

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Nerd word of the week:

Espionage Act – Passed during World War I, the law cracked down on activities the wartime government considered dangerous or disloyal, including sharing national defense information. Today, some sections are used to prosecute mishandling of classified information, like the charges against Trump, or the case of Jack Teixeira, the military IT technician in Massachusetts who shared classified documents with online friends. The act predates the modern government classification system, so its language does not pair up perfectly. But courts have long held that is not an impediment to prosecution.

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Question time

Q: Can the judicial system refuse to consider frivolous appeals or legal challenges by defendants?

A: We’re so glad you asked! There is a two-part answer: Defendants have plenty of latitude to file pretrial motions seeking to dismiss charges or not admit certain evidence – trial judges consider such motions but do not need to hold hearings if they think the answer is clear based on the court filings alone.

Pretrial appeals to higher courts, called interlocutory appeals, are a much different story. There are very few such claims that an appeals court will even consider before a defendant’s trial is held – but one of the few exceptions to that rule is non-frivolous claims of immunity. That’s why Trump’s D.C. trial is on ice while we await a ruling from the Supreme Court.

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