Took long enough
Finally. Special prosecutor Jack Smith indicted former President Donald Trump in Florida Thursday on seven federal counts over his removal, possession, and retention of classified documents. Trump attorney Jim Trusty confirmed that Trump will appear in a Miami federal court Tuesday afternoon for processing.
Trusty told reporters Thursday evening that the summons mentioned the “Espionage Act, multiple false-statement charges and ‘several obstruction-based type charges.’ Specifically, he mentioned Section 1519 (which relates to obstructing an official effort and was widely expected because it was listed on the F.B.I. search warrant affidavit), but also a new one: Section 1512, which criminalizes witness tampering or other means of obstructing an official proceeding.” There may also be a conspiracy count. Charges will be unsealed on Tuesday.
Trusty told Fox News this morning that unlike other presidents Trump is being singled out for having “commingled” personal and government documents upon leaving office (Washington Post):
“For every other president in history, there’s a process of cooperation, a deference to the president to make that first cut — is something presidential or is it personal?” Trusty said. “Here we have a complete weaponization of something that’s never been criminal in history, and it’s a process that frankly is expected to take a long time.”
National defense documents were among those that the FBI discovered in a search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence last summer. The FBI uncovered evidence that Trump had retained and insecurely stored classified documents in addition to those he had already returned to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). After two previous attempts by NARA to retrieve government records, Trump attorneys certified that Trump had returned everything. He had not.
While prosecution of a former president for such actions sets a precedent, such cases are not unprecedented. In February, Chief U.S. District Court Judge J. Michael Seabright of the U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaii sentenced Asia Janay Lavarello, 32, “to three months of imprisonment and a $5,500 fine for knowingly removing classified information concerning the national defense or foreign relations of the United States and retaining it at an unauthorized location.”
The federal indictments in Florida come two months after a New York state court charged Trump for falsifying documents connected to his hush money payments to a porn star.
Trump’s trial in Manhattan is scheduled to begin March 25, 2024, the middle of the primary season. As for the federal charges, Politico reports:
A federal case might operate on a similar timeline. The lengthy pretrial process allows time for Trump’s lawyers and prosecutors to exchange evidence, file motions and even discuss the unlikely prospect of a plea deal.
It’s always hard to predict how long pretrial matters will take, even in run-of-the-mill criminal trials. Dozens of cases stemming from the Jan. 6 attack on Congress have reached the trial stage in recent months, some of them more than a year after charges were filed.
Trump, historically, has sought to drag out litigation, and he’d have many tools in his arsenal to do so here — from seeking to change venue to fighting to dismiss the case altogether.
But Smith brought these Trump charges in South Florida, a jurisdiction known for its “rocket docket” (ABC News):
Walter Norkin, a former federal prosecutor in the Southern District of Florida, explains why that might be notable.
“The Southern District of Florida is one of the few districts in the country that operates under a ‘rocket docket’ and, in distinction from the District of Columbia, you can expect a criminal case to be resolved within six months of an indictment issuing,” Norkin told ABC News. “The judges in the Southern District of Florida adhere very strictly to the Speedy Trial clock, which, with limited exceptions, requires trial or conviction to occur within 70 days.”
As a strategic matter, according to Norkin, the special counsel may have chosen this particular venue as a means to circumvent that inclination as prosecutors face the prospect of “certain policy considerations that take effect as an election nears.”
The Associated Press notes “the willingness of GOP voters and party leaders to stick with a now twice-indicted candidate who could face still more charges. And it sets the stage for a sensational trial centered on claims that a man once entrusted to safeguard the nation’s most closely guarded secrets willfully, and illegally, hoarded sensitive national security information.” And twice-impeached, don’t forget.
So far, the GOP is falling in line behind their front-crimer, as Marcy Wheeler displays in a tweet thread:
Marcy has much more. Knock yourselves out.
Beyond this point, more Trump indictments could come thick and fast. Fulton County, Ga. District Attorney Fani Willis is expected to issue indictments this summer to Trump and others over interference in the 2020 election there. Smith’s investigation into Trump’s participation in the Jan. 6 coup plot may yet yield charges.
Throw in the smoke from wildfires in Canada and elsewhere and we may have to redefine “long, hot summer.”
Update: Seven was just the teaser.
The federal indictment against Trump has been unsealed
Trump and his associate have been charged in a 38-count federal indictment
(h/t DC for “Seven Counts”)