Former President Donald Trump is facing a momentous week in several of his ongoing criminal cases, from a judge’s forthcoming decision on whether to remove Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis in his Georgia election subversion case to a hearing on motions to dismiss his classified documents case in Florida.
Trump is slated to have a busy week in each of his criminal court proceedings except for one, the Washington, D.C., 2020 election subversion case, because proceedings are on hold until the Supreme Court rules sometime in May or June on whether he has presidential immunity and can dismiss the case. Such arguments have so far failed in lower courts.
However, the former president’s effort to dismiss his federal trials on presidential immunity grounds is still having cascading effects in his other cases. On Monday, lawyers for Trump filed a long-shot motion to delay his March 25 criminal hush money trial in Manhattan on immunity grounds, saying the judge there should delay the trial until the Supreme Court rules over the immunity dispute.
Here’s what’s at stake this week in Trump’s cases:
Hearing to dismiss classified documents case
Prosecutors for special counsel Jack Smith are slated to confront Trump’s lawyers on Thursday in U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon’s Florida courtroom over two of Trump’s dismissal motions.
Although Cannon has set a tentative trial date for May 20 in the classified documents case, it is merely a placeholder, as she indicated in a hearing earlier this month that Smith’s preference to hold the trial as early as July is “unreasonable.”
Trump has filed several motions seeking to have the Florida case tossed out. On Thursday, Smith asserted that Trump’s bid to delay the trial on one of the motions, presidential immunity, is “solely for the purpose of delay” until after the 2024 presidential election.
In addition to immunity arguments, both parties are expected to assert their positions on whether some or all of the charges against Trump should be tossed under the Presidential Records Act before the case goes to trial. Smith told Cannon in court filings on Thursday that Trump’s claims that his presidential records “can be transformed into ‘personal’ records” upon leaving the White House are unfounded.
Trump and his two co-defendants in the classified documents case, Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, as also expected to attend the Thursday hearing.
While it’s unclear if Cannon will determine at the hearing when the trial date will start, the hearing could offer more opportunities to observe how the judge, who was appointed by Trump in 2020, is handling the high-profile case.
It’s also worth mentioning that if Cannon does schedule a trial to begin in late summer, that could complicate any scheduling in the Washington federal trial over Trump’s alleged 2020 election subversion.
Fate of Fani Willis could be determined
In Georgia, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee has said he could decide as soon as this week whether Willis should be disqualified from prosecuting the Trump case due to a romantic relationship she had with a lawyer she hired to oversee it.
Trump faces 13 state charges for allegedly trying to overturn the election results in the Peach State. Four of his 18 co-defendants have pleaded guilty.
Although Willis has expressed an interest in starting the trial in August, McAfee has not established an effective start date for the trial as he mulls a motion first brought by co-defendant Mike Roman, a Republican operative, who alleged there was a conflict of interest between Willis and her hired prosecutor on the case, Nathan Wade.
Trump seeks to delay his first criminal trial date
In New York, Trump asked Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan on Monday to pause his March 25 criminal hush money trial in New York until the U.S. Supreme Court issues a ruling on the scope of presidential immunity.
Trump’s attorneys said prosecutors want “to offer evidence at trial concerning a fictitious so-called ‘pressure campaign’ by President Trump in 2018 relating to Michael Cohen,” according to the 26-page motion, which noted that such evidence includes Trump’s public statements and tweets about Cohen, his former lawyer, that “fell within the outer perimeter of his Presidential duty.”
In addition to weighing his latest motion, Merchan is also poised to rule soon over prosecutors’ request for a narrow gag order on Trump. The former president is already subject to a federal gag order that limits what he can say about most of the individuals who are witnesses or are involved in the Washington trial for allegedly conspiring to subvert the 2020 election results.
Meanwhile, in civil court
Trump has until March 25 to put together a bond for more than $450 million to cover a civil fraud judgment against him and the Trump Organization.
Last week, Trump secured a $91 million bond to cover a separate judgment against him in the civil defamation case brought by writer E. Jean Carroll. A jury last year found Trump liable for sexually assaulting her in the mid-1990s and for defaming her when he denied her allegations.
Trump is seeking to appeal the $91 million judgment against him in the second defamation case brought by Carroll, as well as the $450 million civil fraud judgment against his company.
Meanwhile, Trump is also continuing to deny Carroll’s rape allegations against him in public comments, raising concerns that she could once again attempt to sue him for defamation.
“I’m gonna end up winning on appeal. And if I didn’t win on appeal on these ridiculous decisions, if I didn’t win on appeal is the most ridiculous decisions and putting the Miss Bergdorf Goodman, a person I never – I never met, I have no idea who she is. Except one thing. I got sued. From that point on I said, Wow, that’s crazy. What this is. I got charged. I was given a false accusation and had [to] post a $91 million bond on a false accusation,” Trump told CNBC on Monday.
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Carroll’s lawyer Roberta Kaplan issued a statement indicating her team is paying attention to Trump’s latest remarks.
“The statute of limitations for defamation in most jurisdictions is between one and three years. As we said after the last jury verdict, we continue to monitor every statement that Donald Trump makes about our client, E. Jean Carroll,” Kaplan said.
