It shouldn’t surprise anyone that Trump’s goal is to, if not get criminal cases against him summarily dismissed then he’d try to drag out any trial past the November 2024 election. After which he’d (if he were to win) shut down the federal cases and use, or rather abuse the full power of the Presidency to avoid anything happening at the state level. He knew how unlikely dismissal would be fairly early on, when his pet judge Aileen Cannon didn’t toss his case out (with prejudice) but it wasn’t long before she did him a solid and set a trial date in a quite straightforward case of May, 2025. Let’s face it, she’ll allow all kinds of nonsense to push that well into DOJ’s infamous 60 day window prior to a federal election where they hit the pause button.
Still, that wasn’t good enough for Trump. Plus, he knew indictments were coming in Georgia and probably DC too so he decided to lay down a marker. As this piece from CBS News shows he filed a motion with good ole judge Cannon to push the date but what I find illustrative is how it keeps citing the Presidential election a reason (more like excuse!) to delay things until a time when he thought, or at least hoped he could “fix” his problem. As the article notes:
The motion also said of the case against Trump, “The Court now presides over a prosecution advanced by the administration of a sitting President against his chief political rival, himself a leading candidate for the Presidency of the United States.”
The word “election” appears six times in the 12-page filing and is central to the former president’s arguments that trying the case during the presidential campaign would pose a number of problems for a jury and for Trump. The filing noted the difficulty of finding an impartial jury during the campaign season, the huge volume of evidence — some of it classified —as well as outstanding legal questions around the use of the Presidential Records Act.
Even Cannon knew better than to set a date after the election itself but in a ruling less than two weeks later she did set May 2025 for Trump’s FL trial. Which everyone knows she’ll find reasons cited by Trump’s lawyers (and given her past practice help them by offering up some of her own) to push the trial date into the fall. And that DOJ window when they will “go dark.”
Oh, but Trump wasn’t satisfied with knowing his local pet judge would wind up delaying justice, he went for broke in his other federal case. He’s asked for a trial date not in 2025 (after he’d presumably in his thinking be President again) but in April 2026! Again, he’s laying down a marker. Even Trump knows that’s not going to happen, but I’m pretty sure HE thinks not only judge Chutkan in DC will be intimidated enough to push any trial into 2025, but so will the state judges. It won’t work, but I’m pretty sure his goal is to push any trial dates set into next summer and count on being able to throw enough sand in the gears to push things into that “magic DOJ window” where everything disappears. At least for a while.
So what we first saw in that filing referenced in the linked article we are seeing with increasing frequency. It’s going to be Trump’s and the entire GOP’s theme:
Trump being tried anywhere in 2024 means he can’t campaign – ELECTION INTERFERENCE!
Fox and other right-wing outlets will eat this excrement up with a spoon. So will MAGAs throughout the land. I call bullshit. During any criminal trial yes, Trump will have to be present. But you know what? Sometimes there are days where part, if not entire days will be tied up with motions regarding evidence and other matters. There is usually some advanced notice and a judge would excuse Trump from being present on such days. Then there are holidays. And of course weekends. Hell, even the evening hours would be available for Trump to fly somewhere east of the Mississippi, rant in front of a crowd for a while and get back to DC or NYC by midnight.
He can talk with his lawyers while on the freaking plane. He just “free forms” and riffs the same old crap during his rallies anyway so it’s not like he has to add or delete lines from speeches like normal candidates would. Court usually ends by 5pm. Even allowing for DC traffic Trump could be on his plane and as I said in almost anyplace east of the Mississippi and within a hundred to hundred -fifty miles south of the old Mason-Dixon line by 8pm. Plenty of time as I said for him to rant for an hour or so and be back in DC around midnight at the latest. And on weekends? Well, hell. He can do a stop in the midwest on Fri. evening, another further west mid afternoon on Sat. and one somewhere else (even further west) on Sat. evening. On Sunday, he could make a big show of attending church sometimes, and on his way back to DC, or NY (I’m leaving FL out of the equation and GA too to keep this simple) after a Sunday afternoon or early evening rally.
There’s yet another option too. Trump can rent a ballroom or a h.s. gym and fill it up with MAGAs or paid people off the street like his initial announcement at Trump Tower in 2015 and “live feed” it to MAGA audiences in as many places as he chooses! The part Trump would hate would be how he made fun of “Sleepy Joe Biden, campaigning from his basement” in 2020. While that’s an exaggeration it’s true that Trump campaigned normally with rallies that were Covid super-spreader events. Biden had by traditional standards far fewer public events and even made sure they were properly socially distanced so yes, his crowds were smaller. And yes, he did make virtual campaign appearances.
And he KICKED TRUMP’S ASS! (To the tune of what, eight million votes?)
Here’s a bitter irony. President Biden could poke all kinds of fun at Trump for running such a campaign but he won’t. He’s got respect for norms – like Presidents not trying to comment on or influence trials. Trump damn well knows this. HE would do it to Biden or anyone else in a heartbeat but he knows Biden wouldn’t.
So it’s my contention Trump can in fact campaign for President while standing trial. Hell, Lyndon LaRouche and Eugene Debs ran for President from prison! Of course neither were major Party candidates but they still mounted campaigns, albeit for minor Parties. Trump would have (sadly but incredibly) a major Party backing his candidacy even if he was incarcerated. That’s how afraid the GOP is of Trump and his MAGAs but the point is even if convicted he’d likely be out on bail during appeal. And therefore able to campaign normally when not sitting in yet another courtroom. Even then, I’ve described how he can still campaign, and that Joe Biden proved in 2020 a “hybrid” campaign of personal appearances on the campaign trail mixed with virtual ones can be successful.
In Biden’s case VERY successful.
So to Trump (and GOPers) I say SUCK ON IT!!!. You can still campaign, and even make those rally appearances that give you “adulation” “fixes” like some crack addict! I just hope prosecutors are prepared to point all this out in pointed but “polite” legal language to the judges who will preside in Trump’s CRIMINAL trials. And that he’s going to be getting a helluva lot more leeway than damned near any other criminal defendant gets!
Of course he’ll keep campaigning, it’s his only way left of fundraising.