Jan.02

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Trump Legal News: Born under a Bad Sign

It flew under the radar a bit, thanks to the holidays, but Jack Smith filed another motion with Judge Tanya Chutkan on Dec. 27. And it's yet another one that makes clear that Donald Trump is up against a real pro.

The focus of the motion is exactly what "evidence" Trump can, and cannot, introduce at trial. In short, what Smith is asking is that Chutkan proactively prohibit the defense from introducing "irrelevant political issues or arguments," such as "the deep state is behind this" or "1/6 was the fault of Nancy Pelosi" or "George Soros is paying for the government to conduct this trial." Smith observes that such assertions are invalid, and unsupported with evidence, but could still be prejudicial with the jury.

It is already against the rules for attorneys to make claims in court that they conjured up out of thin air; Smith knows this and Chutkan knows this. What Smith has done is comb through Trump's public statements, and identify 10 lines of attack that Trump has raised and that are not legally valid. What the Special Counsel wants is for the judge to preemptively warn the defense that those 10 subject areas are a waste of the Court's time, and will not be tolerated.

This is a very shrewd move by Smith, since it's likely Chutkan will make a pre-trial ruling in support of his position. And even if she doesn't, then everyone involved is nonetheless on notice as to exactly what "distractor" arguments the defense is likely to make. That will tend to make those distractor arguments less effective, and harder to get away with. It is also the case that even though the Washington trial is technically on hold, while the question of presidential immunity is dealt with, Smith is still making progress.

And as long as we are on the subject, let us point out once again that for the next several months, Trump's calendar is going to constantly jump back and forth between court dates and primaries/caucuses. And we're only talking cases where he is the defendant; not the procedural matters that the Supreme Court will be dealing with. A rundown:

• On January 15, the second E. Jean Carroll defamation trial will commence. This is the same day as the Iowa caucuses.
  
  
• On January 29, Trump will face a civil suit related to his endorsement (and alleged masterminding) of a scammy multi-level marketing firm called ACN. This is less than a week after the New Hampshire primary and about a week before the Nevada primary and caucuses and the Virgin Islands caucus.
  
  
• On March 4, assuming the calendar holds, Trump's Washington trial will begin. This is just days after Idaho, Michigan, Missouri, and D.C. hold their primaries, caucuses or conventions. It is the same day that North Dakota holds its caucus. And it is the day before 16 Super Tuesday primaries/caucuses, and about a week before the Wyoming conventions on March 10, and the March 12 primaries/caucuses in Georgia, Hawaii, Mississippi and Washington.
  
  
• On March 25, assuming the calendar holds, Trump's hush money trial in New York will commence. This is between 2 and 10 days after the eight primaries/caucuses scheduled for the second half of March, and is a week before the five primaries set for April 2, in Connecticut, Delaware, New York, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin.

What it amounts to is that if the current trial schedule holds, we'll get to nominating contest #47, Missouri on April 6, before experiencing a greater-than-10-day gap between the start of a Trump trial and people casting ballots. In the case of Missouri, the gap is... 12 days. And the whole time, or nearly the whole time, he'll have one or more trials ongoing. If the classified documents trial moves forward in May—the current plan, though it's not looking like Aileen Cannon will stick to that—he will spend the entire primary season, or nearly the entire primary season, on trial in at least one venue.

There is not much that can pierce Trump's teflon. However, if any voters are having doubts about the former president because of his legal woes, those doubts are going to be reinforced on a daily basis by headlines about this trial or that one. (Z)