She doesn’t need to state any grounds, although she could pull a shim of plausibility around it by giving some BS reason. She could say that her courtroom facility isn’t easy to secure. She could say that she’s mindful of the appearance of impropriety due to Trump having appointed her. (I know. Ha ha.)
The truth is, she doesn’t have the chops to run a trial like this. High profile cases are like driving a team of Clydesdales on methamphetamine. The security, the classified nature of the evidence, the media interest… it’s a job for a super experienced judge, not Aileen Cannon.
As pointed out by the Midas Touch youtube posted earlier in the thread by @Son_of_a_Rich, Cannon has already been slapped down by the Eleventh Circuit – twice – for showing bias in favor of Trump and for inserting herself into a criminal case without having jurisdiction to do so. Their rulings against her clearly stated she was showing bias in favor of Trump.
So her own prior actions will make it easy for the Eleventh to remove her from trying the case due to the bias for which she was earlier chastised by them. Maybe showing her hand before wasn’t such a smart move after all.
While unusual, I think Smith has a solid basis to make a motion for her removal from the case.
It would be one of the first things he’ll do. You have to make these motions before anything gets underway.
If Smith doesn’t make such a motion, it means he believes his case is so strong, it can defeat her shenanigans. He’s got an ironclad case, but I doubt he’s going to trust it to a demonstrated loon like Cannon.
It likely goes without saying, but I think we’re not going to see even a hint of a plea deal. One, Smith seems to have such a strong case, with all the various plays gamed out, that he believes he can win no matter what happens during the trial. And two, trump is too mentally twisted to even consider a plea deal; it would mean admitting he’s guilty or that he knows he’s going to otherwise lose.
Yeah, I can’t see Trump taking a plea bargain in return for a shorter sentence, or to save the government and country the trauma of a trial. But I could imagine him being so backed into a corner, so convinced he’ll be found guilty, that he pleads guilty and then makes a speech (or a tweet) about how the deep state was just too powerful and the trial was rigged against him. He’d probably even believe it, himself.
I joked in another thread that Trump could accept a plea agreement in exchange for his testimony against Walt Nauta, but I think that’s unlikely.
Trump’s MO for decades has been to settle out of court with two important terms:
No public admission of guilt.
A hefty donation from his “charity,” which was funded by people other than him.
I think he’s capable of understanding when he can’t win a lawsuit on its merits. He absolutely knows he’s a criminal. He just can’t handle losing, and he can’t handle the perception that he’s not getting away with it. So he grinds people down in court until they accept whatever bullshit terms he throws at them. He “wins” even if settling is a tacit admission of guilt.
None of that shit will fly here. He’s in Big Boy court now.
I guarantee that he asked at least one set of disposable lawyers to offer that kind of deal, though. “Make this go away, you idiot! Tell Jack Smith that we’ll donate a million dollars to something! That always works!”
I think his defense (such as it is) is to a) ask his crony judge to set the trial for after the election; b) get elected; c) pardon himself and everyone else, ignore the political firestorm and stoke more violent resistance to those who would hold him accountable.
From what I have read, she can set the timing of the trial and that could help Trump immensely, if he is running for president and a trial is after the election, he can use it to motivate his violent base to take actions. If his trial is while he’s running for president, he will have to split attention, plus be careful what he says on the trail because of the trial.
That can’t be all of it, though, if cases are usually assigned to judges that have some prior connection to the case. Which requires at least some level of human involvement to determine who has prior connection. So who was the human who had that involvement?
Sorry if it’s already been asked: since both Trump and Nauta are named in the indictment, does that mean they will be tried together? (Assuming Nauta doesn’t take a plea deal.) Or would there be separate trials for each?
