Former President Donald Trump is due in court in Miami next week on 37 counts related to the alleged mishandling of classified documents, and the indictment unsealed on Friday -- he's the first former president to face federal charges.
The situation is unprecedented. It’s hard to predict how the case itself will play out – and how it will impact a campaign season where Trump is the Republican frontrunner.
Former federal prosecutor and Columbia Law professorJennifer Rodgers told KNX News that the timing is a “huge issue” facing prosecutors.
The Department of Justice has a policy to avoid doing anything in the 90 days before an election that might influence that election, and they seem to be hoping to resolve the charges against Trump before that deadline hits.
“I think the special counsel was so smart in charging this really leanly ... They could have charged hundreds of counts,” Rodgers said. “And they’ve charged in Florida instead of D.C., where you would see a flurry of motions to dismiss and to move the case on venue grounds. I think they did both of those things in order to move this as quickly as possible.”
Rodgers predicts that a trial may take place sometime between May and July of 2024.
Once the trial is underway, Rodgers is confident the government will be ready to secure the courthouse to prevent violence and ensure the proceedings won’t be interrupted.
“We’ve certainly had intelligence lapses in the past where there’s been online activity that’s been ignored or not taken seriously enough, but I think we’ve learned those lessons,” she said, citing law enforcement’s failure to act on intel that there would be violence at the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Trump is also facing a separate trial set for next March on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records stemming from his hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels. Trump’s defense attorney from that case, Todd Blanche, will also represent him in the new federal case.
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