The potential delay of Donald Trump’s federal criminal trial on charges of conspiring to interfere with the 2020 election raises a little-discussed possibility: His first criminal trial could be held in Manhattan on state charges.
Last year, a New York grand jury indicted the former president for falsifying documents to cover up a $130,000 hush money payment to porn actress Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election. Silencing that scandal helped get him elected. It was a preview of Trump’s efforts to steal the 2020 election — except that in 2016 he succeeded.
It’s possible that Trump’s appeals in the D.C. case won’t be resolved before March 25, when Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s prosecution is set for trial.
Unquestionably, it would be best for the D.C. trial to go first. The grand jury’s indictment concerns an attempted crime against the nation that we saw in real time … and while Trump was the president. It’s yet to be proven in court, but it has to rank as the greatest presidential betrayal of the nation in history.
But the D.C. trial going first may not be in the cards. In that case, with Trump’s new appeal of two denied motions to dismiss the Jan. 6-related prosecution, the law required Judge Tanya Chutkan to stay the prosecution last week pending appellate disposition.
Trump’s appeal is legally fraught, to put it kindly — less an attempt to win than to delay. Special counsel Jack Smith has moved on all fronts to expedite the appeals. He may well succeed and get that case tried on March 4 as scheduled, or shortly thereafter.
But it’s possible that Trump’s appeals in the D.C. case won’t be resolved before March 25, when Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s prosecution is set for trial. Bragg previously has been sensitive to the priority of Smith’s Jan. 6-related prosecution and he could ask to delay the New York trial. But guessing at an appellate decision date in a related case is not the…
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