Should Trump Insist on his Constitutional Right to Speedy Trials?

[Pellinore]

Cameras in the courtroom should be the last thing anti-Trumpers would want. They will already have to deal with wall-to-wall Trump coverage. When Trump's lawyers cross-examine the government's witness, or when Trump's lawyers present his case, the last thing you should want is millions of people watching and millions more seeing it on Youtube that evening.

Except that his lawyers aren't the ones with the skill on the mic, he is. The people who care about watching lawyers be lawyers are the policy and judicial wonks who are going to follow it step-by-step anyway. Cameras will get direct quotes and YouTube clips to the half-interested YouTube surfers or whatever, which is most people.

That will work against Trump in two big ways. First, people will see prosecutors speaking and describing the charges in detail, rather than just seeing a tweet about a post somewhere. Second, Trump and a handful of his people will have to answer questions directly in court. Trump's message has done really well in a political arena when he can spin or stretch or simply lie, but in case you haven't noticed, his message does tremendously poorly in court, where everything has to be true.

People seeing that every day all the time could be really bad for him. Two months before the convention it could be devastating, but I think Judge Cannon will push that back further. Jack Smith streamlined the DC court conspiracy and obstruction charges, and the trial date for that will probably be set on the 28th of this very month, and Judge Upadhyaya is a lot less lenient toward Trump. That's likely to get a quick date and cameras just in time for the primaries.

Honestly, I don't see how he intends to navigate this logistically. Forget presidential campaigns, have you ever known anyone in history that had to juggle *six* different high-profile court cases at the same time?

 

[Seymour Flops]

Except that his lawyers aren't the ones with the skill on the mic, he is. The people who care about watching lawyers be lawyers are the policy and judicial wonks who are going to follow it step-by-step anyway. Cameras will get direct quotes and YouTube clips to the half-interested YouTube surfers or whatever, which is most people.

Trump having mad mic skills does not preclude his lawyers from being good at cross examinations. More than Trump's lawyers being flops at their jobs, my concern would be that the news would tune in carefully for the government lawyers direct examination of their own witnesses and then cut away as soon as Trump's lawyers got their turn.

If your point is that the media will carefully manage the news in order to present its case against Trump, I couldn't agreem more. How can anyone honestly argue that the media has not been doing that going on eight years now?

That will work against Trump in two big ways. First, people will see prosecutors speaking and describing the charges in detail, rather than just seeing a tweet about a post somewhere. Second, Trump and a handful of his people will have to answer questions directly in court. Trump's message has done really well in a political arena when he can spin or stretch or simply lie, but in case you haven't noticed, his message does tremendously poorly in court, where everything has to be true.

I'm not sure that in court "everything has to be true." It's obvious that Jack Smith has taken a kitchen sink approach to throwing the book at Trump. He has been overturned and reprimanded in the past when he has gone after Republicans, which is likely the reason he was chosen to go after Trump, when he should have been fired or demoted long ago.

Trump has yet to speak in court under oath, as far as I know. When he does, the media will have to cover that or their viewers will all run to Fox or whoever is covering it. You know how many times Donald Trump has been grilled by a hostile questioner, in press interviews, and under oath for depositions? You honestly think Jack Smith will be the one to finally bring about that Captain Queeg moment?

People seeing that every day all the time could be really bad for him. Two months before the convention it could be devastating, but I think Judge Cannon will push that back further. Jack Smith streamlined the DC court conspiracy and obstruction charges, and the trial date for that will probably be set on the 28th of this very month, and Judge Upadhyaya is a lot less lenient toward Trump. That's likely to get a quick date and cameras just in time for the primaries.

Are you predicting that Judge Upadhyaya will allow Trump's lawyers twenty days to prepare to defend a case that they prosecution has had two and a half years to prepare for? She has judges over her, she can't be that obvious.

Honestly, I don't see how he intends to navigate this logistically. Forget presidential campaigns, have you ever known anyone in history that had to juggle *six* different high-profile court cases at the same time?

Never, especially while campaigning for president as a major party front-runner.

Do you honestly believe that the timing of the indictments has been a coincidence? All of them coming shortly after major news about Biden family corruption, and all of them for "crimes" more than two years old, but just now being prosecuted?

If you honestly* think it's coincidence, it's fine to say so . . .

*I should apologize for emphasizing my desire that you be honest, without knowing whether you are honest or not. It's just that Dems talking about Trump usually run out of truth pretty quickly and immediately go to lies. If you are different, my bad.

 

[Pellinore]

Trump having mad mic skills does not preclude his lawyers from being good at cross examinations. More than Trump's lawyers being flops at their jobs, my concern would be that the news would tune in carefully for the government lawyers direct examination of their own witnesses and then cut away as soon as Trump's lawyers got their turn.

If your point is that the media will carefully manage the news in order to present its case against Trump, I couldn't agreem more. How can anyone honestly argue that the media has not been doing that going on eight years now?

Trump doesn't just have mad mic skills; he's magnetic. He gets people to show up who ordinarily wouldn't.

And the media isn't a monolith. Some outlets (MSNBC) will skew it against him, sure, and others (CNN) will go for the usual clown show. Others (Fox) will skew for him, but the reputable ones will be, well, reputable. I'm not worried about viewers having the show hidden from them.

I'm not sure that in court "everything has to be true." It's obvious that Jack Smith has taken a kitchen sink approach to throwing the book at Trump. He has been overturned and reprimanded in the past when he has gone after Republicans, which is likely the reason he was chosen to go after Trump, when he should have been fired or demoted long ago.

Trump has yet to speak in court under oath, as far as I know. When he does, the media will have to cover that or their viewers will all run to Fox or whoever is covering it. You know how many times Donald Trump has been grilled by a hostile questioner, in press interviews, and under oath for depositions? You honestly think Jack Smith will be the one to finally bring about that Captain Queeg moment?

My point is that when anybody, Trump or not, is in the political arena — giving a speech or an interview or whatever — they can say anything, without having to worry about cross-examination, objections, a judge reining them in, and so on. In the legal arena, they could go to jail for lying. Politicians stretch the truth and even lie, but Trump and his people rely on it a *lot* more than others which, as a political tactic, has been working.

As a legal tactic, though, it gets shut down pretty much immediately: Trump did so poorly in the New York fraud case (where he gave a deposition, then lost); ditto for the E. Jean Carroll sexual assault case (where he pleaded the fifth, then lost); his family lost in the stealing-from-charity case; Fox News did terribly in court and had to admit their people were making things up; Flynn, Stone, Bannon, Manafort, and Papadopoulos all tanked in court and went to jail; Rudy lied in court and was successfully sued over it; Sidney Powell was sanctioned, charged, and referred for disbarment because she lied in court; and none of the sixty-something lawsuits all over the country proved that voter fraud changed a thing.

His trump card (sorry about that) is, of course, the Supreme Court, but even that can only get him so far.

Are you predicting that Judge Upadhyaya will allow Trump's lawyers twenty days to prepare to defend a case that they prosecution has had two and a half years to prepare for? She has judges over her, she can't be that obvious.

The 28th is just a hearing. They will probably set a trial date then, I'm guessing a couple of months away.

Never, especially while campaigning for president as a major party front-runner.

Do you honestly believe that the timing of the indictments has been a coincidence? All of them coming shortly after major news about Biden family corruption, and all of them for "crimes" more than two years old, but just now being prosecuted?

If you honestly* think it's coincidence, it's fine to say so . . .

It's not coincidence, but it's not conspiracy either. They can't ignore the political aspect; the more it stretches into next year, the trickier it gets for a Presidential candidate. If he wins next November, this gets put on long-term pause at best. I'm positive that's why he left the others unindicted, and kept it to just four charges, to try to get it handled ASAP.

And they don't care a bit about the so-called Biden family corruption. There's nothing to that, legally. That won't change their tactics a bit.

Also, two years isn't outrageous here. There are still hundreds of people awaiting trial or sentencing for January 6th, and this is probably going to end up being the most consequential case in the last century at least, if not the entire country's existence. Yeah, if anything, they sped it up.

*I should apologize for emphasizing my desire that you be honest, without knowing whether you are honest or not. It's just that Dems talking about Trump usually run out of truth pretty quickly and immediately go to lies. If you are different, my bad.

No, please do! Question everyone here. I'm only here part-time, and in text-only message boarding, all we know of each other is what we type. I'm not a Democrat, and I do my best to be truthful and use the knowledge I have.

 

[Seymour Flops]

And the media isn't a monolith. Some outlets (MSNBC) will skew it against him, sure, and others (CNN) will go for the usual clown show. Others (Fox) will skew for him, but the reputable ones will be, well, reputable. I'm not worried about viewers having the show hidden from them.

Ok, seriously, Pellinore: Which outlets are reputable? Because I have found that unless I seek a specifically conservative outlet like Foxnews or talk radio, I get nothing about Trump but the constant repitition of how he lied to overturn the results of the election and is finally coming to justice for it.

My point is that when anybody, Trump or not, is in the political arena — giving a speech or an interview or whatever — they can say anything, without having to worry about cross-examination, objections, a judge reining them in, and so on. In the legal arena, they could go to jail for lying. Politicians stretch the truth and even lie, but Trump and his people rely on it a *lot* more than others which, as a political tactic, has been working.

As a legal tactic, though, it gets shut down pretty much immediately: Trump did so poorly in the New York fraud case (where he gave a deposition, then lost); ditto for the E. Jean Carroll sexual assault case (where he pleaded the fifth, then lost); his family lost in the stealing-from-charity case; Fox News did terribly in court and had to admit their people were making things up; Flynn, Stone, Bannon, Manafort, and Papadopoulos all tanked in court and went to jail; Rudy lied in court and was successfully sued over it; Sidney Powell was sanctioned, charged, and referred for disbarment because she lied in court; and none of the sixty-something lawsuits all over the country proved that voter fraud changed a thing.

Yes, in front of Democrat judges, Trump has disadvantages. But at least his side will have a chance to present a case, something that the media doesn't allow him. So far all we legally know about the cases against Trump are what the prosecutors have chosen to show us. For too may Democrats on here, that is enough. There are people who literally believe that Trump has no case to put up.

His trump card (sorry about that) is, of course, the Supreme Court, but even that can only get him so far.


The 28th is just a hearing. They will probably set a trial date then, I'm guessing a couple of months away.

Why would his lawyers only get a couple of months when the prosector took two and a half years and had no time limit other than the statute of limitations? Alvin Bragg found a way around even that. Because people think Trump has no possible case, they don't get that his lawyers would need time to prepare, find and interview witnesses, research the law, conduct mock juries, etc.

No way the case goes to trial before the election unless that is the judge's aim as it obviously is the prosecutors.

It's not coincidence, but it's not conspiracy either. They can't ignore the political aspect; the more it stretches into next year, the trickier it gets for a Presidential candidate. If he wins next November, this gets put on long-term pause at best. I'm positive that's why he left the others unindicted, and kept it to just four charges, to try to get it handled ASAP.

And they don't care a bit about the so-called Biden family corruption. There's nothing to that, legally. That won't change their tactics a bit.

Also, two years isn't outrageous here. There are still hundreds of people awaiting trial or sentencing for January 6th, and this is probably going to end up being the most consequential case in the last century at least, if not the entire country's existence. Yeah, if anything, they sped it up.

Yes, all good points. I'm sure hoping that you'll answer the above question, though.

Two years is not that outrageous for a low-profile, minor case. The cases against Trump evidenly did not become major cases to be prioritized until after he announced to run in 2024. Too much coincidence.

No, please do! Question everyone here. I'm only here part-time, and in text-only message boarding, all we know of each other is what we type. I'm not a Democrat, and I do my best to be truthful and use the knowledge I have.

Good! Then my concern that you would not answer the question is invalid.

 

[frigidweirdo]

Trump's strident abuse of officers of the court and their families may not be the most sound approach to refuting charges against him.

Nor is his pleading, "You can't allow me my Constitutional right for a speedy trial when I'm running for president!"

if that were the case, every criminal charged with a crime would declare that he is a candidate for the presidency (although, characters like Ru Giuliani and Wally Nauta vying with Trump for the GOP nomination would be decidedly mirthful. And Trump's dozens of fake electors throwing their hats into the ring as they are charged would add to the fun!)

In this case, the accused, rather than dragging his flabby fat arse, should be demanding his 6th Amendment right to speedy trials in all his litigations.

The clearest path to the White House for Trump is to avail himself of his opportunity to clear his name in all prosecutions as expeditiously as possible.

​

A federal judge in Florida has scheduled a trial date for next May for Trump in a case charging him with illegally retaining hundreds of classified documents.​

​

The May 20, 2024, trial date, set Friday by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, is a compromise between a request from prosecutors to set the trial for this December and a bid by defense lawyers to schedule it after the 2024 presidential election.​

​

If the date holds, it would follow close on the heels of a separate New York trial for Trump on dozens of state charges of falsifying business records. It also means the trial will not start until deep into the presidential nominating calendar and probably well after the Republican nominee is clear — though before that person is officially nominated at the Republican National Convention.​

​

Trump could yet face additional trials in the coming year. He revealed this week that he had received a letter informing him that he was a target of a separate Justice Department investigation into efforts to undo the 2020 presidential election, and prosecutors in Georgia plan to announce charging decisions within weeks in an investigation into attempts by Trump and his allies to subvert the vote there.​

[https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/poli...ssified-documents-case-in-florida/ar-AA1eaAuT]​

​

By pushing for an expedited schedule and venues for his various trials, Trump could then coordinate his trumpery jamborees accordingly, making them into gala affairs that lend themselves readily to witness intimidation. His political campaign and his prosecutorial exposure will be shamelessly conflated by him anyway.

Even though the President has scrupulously avoided Trump's legal problems, Trump will play the martyr and whine that Joe Biden is being very mean to him.

Trump's "Lets' fart around" strategy is a missed opportunity.


View attachment 806619
................"He's scared shitless."

Why prolong the anxiety?

Simple fact is that ALL PEOPLE are EQUAL under the law. That Trump doesn't know this is scary as hell. That his supporters support him when he doesn't know this, or anything else, and when he said he could kill someone on 5th avenue and they'd still support him, shows how selective they are. He literally called his own supporters "idiots" and they love him for it.

 

[surada]

You bought the ridiculous media spin that the DOJ pushed for an early trial date in December.

They asked for a delay until December, not being ready as they promised the grand jury to get the indictment.

Trump's strategy has been to delay all trials.

 

[schmidlap]

Simple fact is that ALL PEOPLE are EQUAL under the law. That Trump doesn't know this is scary as hell. That his supporters support him when he doesn't know this, or anything else, and when he said he could kill someone on 5th avenue and they'd still support him, shows how selective they are. He literally called his own supporters "idiots" and they love him for it.

When the Cry Baby Loser throws one of his tantrums, calling the Special Counsel who has issued substantive, evidence-based indictments "deranged!" and raving,

"You take a look at that face, and say that guy is a sick man...
I believe is mentally ill."
​

... rather than relying his defense attorneys to attempt to refute the substantive charges in court, you discipline him by taking away his favorite teething ring. (Postponing changing his diaper to punish him is not permissible.)​

​

 

[Pellinore]

Ok, seriously, Pellinore: Which outlets are reputable? Because I have found that unless I seek a specifically conservative outlet like Foxnews or talk radio, I get nothing about Trump but the constant repitition of how he lied to overturn the results of the election and is finally coming to justice for it.

Picking a media outlet in order to get the results you want is just begging to be lied to. I've known people who have done that with MSNBC too, and they're asking for it just as much. You have to consider, just from a standpoint of pure logic, that the reason that many of these sites are saying that he lied to overturn the election and is finally coming to justice for it, is not because they are all telling the same lie for nefarious reasons, but because he lied to overturn the election and is finally coming to justice for it.

There are good sites out there, though I admit sometimes it takes some looking. Many sites have at least a little bias, but as long as they stick mostly to the facts, I find most people can take their perspective into account. I've used mediabiasfactcheck.com for years; they have even standards and document their reasoning, and I've found the sources I've verified through them pretty much match their descriptions. Whenever I post a link here, I will include a little link to their assessment (assuming I remember).

I'm okay with sites then that may lean one way or another, as long as they have good records on remaining factual. AP, BBC, and NPR lean a little left, but the Cato Institute, the Bulwark, the fact-checker Check Your Fact, and the Chicago Tribune are all right-center. The Economist, UPI, and Reuters are straight up the middle. I stay away from anything they call straight-up Left (CNN, MSNBC) or Right (Daily Caller, the Federalist Society), and any source that has Mixed or worse factual reporting (like Al-Jazeera).

Yes, in front of Democrat judges, Trump has disadvantages. But at least his side will have a chance to present a case, something that the media doesn't allow him.

Oh, yes. He deserves a full-throated, vigorous defense. If he isn't guaranteed that, none of us are. That's why we have Senate confirmed federal judges, to make sure he gets it.

So far all we legally know about the cases against Trump are what the prosecutors have chosen to show us. For too may Democrats on here, that is enough. There are people who literally believe that Trump has no case to put up.

That's not totally the case — we have seen and heard some of the evidence that they'll be using that was already out there, including everything from the January 6 hearings. Otherwise, I can't think that any lawyer involved, arguing either side, would be anxious to show their playbook off to the press.

I can understand why many people think that the case is open and shut. It's difficult to think of how some of these allegations can be explained away. If they're trying to prove that he knew the election wasn't rigged, for example, how can you look past a dozen or so of his own advisors saying, "These weren't rigged"? So far, it seems as if Trump's team is relying on playing it through the media, but again, they haven't shown their playbook either.

Then again, nobody thought the Rodney King cops would get off either, and there was straight-up video of them enthusiastically beating the shit out of that guy, over and over. So who knows.

Why would his lawyers only get a couple of months when the prosector took two and a half years and had no time limit other than the statute of limitations? Alvin Bragg found a way around even that. Because people think Trump has no possible case, they don't get that his lawyers would need time to prepare, find and interview witnesses, research the law, conduct mock juries, etc.

That brings us back to the thesis of the thread: No, it would not be in Trump's best interest to have this trial go quickly. He wants to stretch it out for as long as possible, for several reasons.

 

[Rye Catcher]

Maybe the bit/coin scammer Bankman/Fried should ask for a speedy trial. Nobody has seen him since he was extradited from the Virgin Islands and it became evident that he donated millions to the Biden campaign.

Who, What, When and How did you know this comment?









BET he doesn't know anyone of them.

 

[Rye Catcher]

Federal trials can easily be dragged out for a long time of course.

The Liberal who shot up the Pittsburgh synagogue is on trial now in federal court and the alleged crime happened 5 years ago.

It ain't happen here!

 

[BackAgain]

Should Trump Insist on his Constitutional Right to Speedy Trials?​

You are a dipshit, Schitlips. Whether he “should” seek a “speedy trial” or not depends entirely on what he sees as being in his own self-interest. You get no say in the matter.

 

[Care4all]

It isn't just Trump's right to a speedy trial.

It is also a right for those harmed, the victims. The judge's duty is to keep the trial moving forward, and quickly.

Justice delayed is Justice denied......

 

[surada]

We know who is above the law and Trump is not one of those people.

RICO anyone?

Georgia set to take over the Trump indictment spotlight

All eyes are on Georgia this week, where yet another indictment of former President Trump is expected imminently. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D) has been probing Trump’s eff…

thehill.com