The Battle Lines In The Georgia Trial Are Slowly Coming Into Focus

I’m sorry I missed the Fulton County court hearing for the Trump mob today, but 6am PDT is about three hours before I even start breathing deeply again. But I’ve seen enough post games wrap up and analysis to have a pretty good idea of how it went.

And there’s some good reason. Presiding judge Scott McAfee has gotten some direction and reassurance from above. In the hearing last week, Mark Meadows still had a motion before a Georgia US district court judge to sever his case from the others and move it to federal court instead. This obviously concerned McAfee. In the hearing he asked the prosecutors something like, If Meadows gets his case separated, do all 18 go with him? Do only some go with him, or is he alone? How do we move forward with this case with this hanging over our heads?

What a difference a week makes. Most legal analysts have agreed that if anybody had the best chance to sever his case, it was Meadows. And earlier this week, the federal district court judge threw Meadows to the wolves. Not only did he deny his request to be severed and moved to federal court, he then denied Meadows’s motion for an emergency stay on his own ruling while Meadows’s appeal wove its way through the 11th Circuit. This gave judge McAfee some confidence that the consortium of stupid he sees before him will most likely stay before him.

And then he got a boost from the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. They agreed to Meadows’s motion for expedited processing, gave him until Friday to file his motion, gave the prosecution until Monday to file their response, and Meadows two weeks to file a rebuttal. This is the same 11th Circuit that used lightening speed in booting Traffic Court Judge Aileen Cannon to Chateau Bow-wow for being a knucklehead in the Trump Special Master case. Meadows should go down in flames by the second week of October. And nobody else will come close.

That seems to have given Judge McAfee confidence. He made to major rulings today. First, Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell will proceed to jury selection on October 23rd. Married at the hip, and being televised on live television. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Bless this bed of nails I lie on. Hell, they made that bed. Sweet dreams.

Seemingly more confident the the motley crew of 17 ye has left before him will be what he goes to trial with, Judge McAfee set an aggressive schedule. He will continue to hold weekly Friday hearings, but now he’s going to entertain motions to begin the discovery process, and to set a future trial date. He’s not waiting for any future federal decisions, he’ll work around it if he has to. He wants this train rolling down the track with all due speed.

Judge McAfee also left the door open to something I’ve been mulling over in my own mind for the last week now. While he is moving along with 17 defendants for a unified trial, he also seems to be mulling splitting the trials up, say into three trials of six defendants each. And if he’s following my own line of reasoning, it’s simple logic and math.

In the first hearing, McAfee pressed the prosecutors for a timeframe for a 19 defendant trial. The prosecutor stated that by their estimate, not including jury selection, it would take approximately four months at trial with some 160+ witnesses. When Judge McAfee asked what would happen if the 17were broken up, the prosecutors replied that it would be the same, four months for trial, because they would present all evidence at each trial, since what applied to one defendant applies to all defendants under the conspiracy theory of RICO.

Which makes no sense. If you have a trial with 19 criminal defendants, each defense attorney has six peremptory challenges, excusing potential jurors with no reason. That would be a possible 100 potential jurors subject to exclusion. And every time a witness is called by the prosecution, each defense attorney would have a chance to cross examine. And don’t even get me started on pre-trial motions and objections.

But if you have a case with only six defendants, just do the math. Instead of a possible 100 peremptory challenges, you’re down to 30. And instead of having 19 defense attorneys cross examining witnesses and making motions and objections, you have six. Under the prosecutions paradigm, simple logic indicates that a trial with six defendants should logically conclude within about 6-8 weeks. This doesn’t sound anywhere near as scary as an endless series of four month trials.

But whatever, Judge McAfee is kicking-ass-and-taking-names. While he has yet to name an actual trial date, he today notified all 17 defendants, including Traitor Tot, a deadline date of December 1st to file all of their pre-trial motions. And unless Georgia is different from everybody else I know, pre-trial motions are the last hearing before jury selection and trial begins.

There are miles to go, and bumps in the road, but Judge McAfee seems intent on moving this whole mess forward with due dispatch. And that’s bad news for El Pendejo Presidente. My personal prediction is that we’ll see the trials split up 2-6-6-5. And it won’t take any four months for any of them. By the time the Republican National Convention rolls around, Trump may be the first federally and state convicted criminal presidential candidate in history. Don’t touch that dial.