Former President Donald Trump is facing a packed schedule for the next year, juggling his 2024 campaign and at least three criminal trials.
Defense attorney and legal analyst Rachel Fiset told KNX News’ Rob Archer and Karen Adams that his latest set of charges, stemming from his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election, could jump the line and go to trial before the others.
“I think the prosecutors on what are now the three indicted cases, as well as a possible indictment in Georgia, will coordinate such that delay due to other trials … won't result,” she said.
Fiset added that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who’s prosecuting the case regarding Trump’s hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels, has already offered to forfeit his March trial date so that the election conspiracy trial can move forward more quickly.
Meanwhile, the classified documents case in Florida, currently scheduled to begin next May, is likely to have delays due to the sensitive nature of the documents being discussed.
While Trump may have his base convinced that the charges against him are a political witch hunt, Fisel says he’ll have a harder time arguing for his innocence in court.
“It is difficult to think of a defense that would get rid of this conviction,” she said. “The first amendment issues that they have raised, that Trump was … politically speaking and he has a right to do so, really only goes to some elements of the crimes that they are trying to prove.”
To beat the charges, Trump’s lawyers will have to prove that he didn’t know the claims he was making about the election were false. According to Fisel, that will be difficult to do, given the evidence we’ve seen so far.
“What makes this case hard to defend is that Jack Smith and the prosecutors have a lot of evidence,” she said. “He has people that were in the room that are clearly willing to testify. And what we are sensing is that there are a lot of them.”
However, political science professor Tony Smith told KNX News that even if Trump is found guilty, the current Supreme Court is unlikely to uphold his conviction.
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