Trump's New Delay Tactic

Donald Trump asked for a few more weeks, and is now using that to attempt to delay the release of the DC case evidence appendix.

For over a year, Donald Trump has been directly asking to delay the many trials against him. And when those attempts fail (except with Judge Aileen Cannon in Florida who has been all to happy to grant Donald’s delay requests), he turns to other tactics. In Fulton County, he conspired to bring a disqualification case against DA Fani Willis - which was successful. Now he’s got a new trick up his sleeve in the DC case.

We all know the timeline by now:

August, 2023: Trump is indicted by Special Counsel Jack Smith
October 2023: Trump files to dismiss the case on immunity grounds
December 2023: Jack Smith asks SCOTUS to leapfrog the lower court. They refuse.
July 2024: SCOTUS rules that presidents have certain immunity
July 2024: Case is sent back down to Judge Chutkan to determine immunity
August 2024: Jack Smith asks for three more weeks to file his immunity brief
August 2024: Jack Smith obtains a new narrower indictment
October 2024: Jack Smith’s immunity brief is unsealed
October 2024: Trump asks for five more weeks to respond. He gets 3 more weeks
October 2024: The day Jack Smith’s evidence appendix is supposed to be unsealed, Trump asks for another 3 weeks: saying it’s unfair that he doesn’t get to respond to Jack Smith’s briefs before the election - even though HE is the one who asked for three more weeks to respond.

That’s right. In a new filing today, Trump says that because he asked for three more weeks, he won’t be able to respond before the election, and therefore the Judge should DELAY releasing the massive evidence appendix for the crimes against him.

The only problem is that Judge Chutkan has already plainly said she does NOT take the election timeline into consideration as part of this case.

On October 2, 2024, the Court overruled President Trump’s objections as to the Special Counsel’s redacted immunity brief and ordered its immediate public release. Significant press coverage followed, including in this District. See, e.g., Trump and the federal election case against him: Key passages from prosecutors’ latest court filing, NBC Washington (Oct. 3, 2024). The incumbent Vice President—whose administration the Special Counsel serves—also began featuring the Special Counsel’s brief in political advertisements for the 2024 Presidential Election. Kamala Harris, YouTube (Oct. 6, 2024). Thus, without any semblance of due process—including President Trump’s right to cross-examine witnesses and call his own witnesses in a court proceeding—the public has been poisoned by a one-sided prosecutorial narrative that is being used for political purposes by the incumbent administration. Thereafter, on October 10, 2024, the Court determined the redacted SC Appendix should also be released, but stayed implementation of that Order for seven days to permit President Trump to evaluate further litigation options. Doc. 260 at 2. This motion follows.

First of all, I don’t think Trump’s “right to cross-examine witnesses and call his own witnesses” applies to pre-trial immunity determinations, but what do I know?

Here, President Trump requests only that the Court briefly continue its existing stay of the Order, such that the redacted versions of the SC Appendix and President Trump’s forthcoming appendix may be released concurrently. Although this stay will not eliminate the harms President Trump identified in his prior opposition filings, Docs. 248, 259, certain harms will be mitigated. For example, if the Court immediately releases the Special Counsel’s cherry-picked documents, potential jurors will be left with a skewed, one-sided, and inaccurate picture of this case. Those same potential jurors may not see President Trump’s later responsive filing, and even if some do, “first impressions are prone to remain.” That is especially so as this Court’s gag order, Doc. 105 (as narrowed by the D.C. Circuit, Doc. 187-2), unconstitutionally restricts President Trump’s ability to utilize First Amendment-protected political speech to publicly comment on these proceedings, including the SA Appendix.

Second, I don’t think the First Amendment protects a defendant’s right to submit court filings before elections. But what do I know? Further, the gag order doesn’t stop him from filing briefs - nor does it stop him from publicly commenting on this trial, or even going after Jack Smith. Finally, I’m pretty sure nothing forced Trump to delay his response until after the election and then complain that the doesn’t get to file his response before the election.

I imagine Judge Chutkan will say “Sorry. You asked to respond after the election. If you wanted to respond before the election, you could have kept your original due date of October 17th. Besides, as this court as said before, the timing of the election plays no role in these proceedings.” Or something like that.

You can read Trump’s motion to delay here.

I’ll let you know what the Judge says. Maybe she’ll grant it since she did give Jack Smith 3 weeks, which caused Trump to get an additional 3 weeks. But we’ll see.

~AG