Well, moving quickly and having a less than iron clad case would make an unsuccessful prosecution more likely. I’m sure that Trump would make hay of that situation if Smith had proceeded that way. The perfect is the enemy of the good, after all.
FBI Search and Seizure at Trump's Mar-A-Lago Residence, August 8, 2022, Case Dismissed July 15, 2024
Or both.
From the article cited by CoolHandCox:
That’s an awful lot of material to go through. If their estimate of the video is accurate, that’s 3 person-years worth of viewing.
And over a million pages of documents?
Even using computer scanning of documents for key words and so on, that’s an awful lot of material to go through.
Then, once the pass-through is made, to identify likely issues, the defence team will have to review them carefully, with an eye to whether a particular piece is helpful and can be entered in court.
There’s a lot of work for defence to do on this one.
I know, but if the cautious approach plus all the inevitable delays end up with Trump back in the White House, it will all have been for naught anyway.
And this case has been a veritable sprint compared to the Jan. 6 investigation.
True, and I’m sure they want to pick through as much of it as possible, but they did address it.
From their response:
Discovery Does Not Warrant a Continuance
The Defendants’ claims regarding the volume of discovery do not support continuing the trial date beyond December 2023. Rather, the thorough and organized discovery the Government has provided and will continue to provide in the near term is entirely consistent with that trial date.
In arguing otherwise, the Defendants have failed to include important information about the Government’s discovery productions, including the steps the Government has taken to make the Defendants’ review as efficient as possible. For example, the Government’s production included a set of “key” documents referenced in the Indictment or otherwise determined by the Government to be pertinent to the case. See ECF No. 30 at 2. In addition, for the Defendants’ convenience, the Government included with its first production a Discovery Log, which denoted by Bates range the source of the material. Although the Government’s production included over 800,000 pages, the set of “key” documents was only about 4,500 pages. 2 The Government similarly identified to the Defendants a small subset of “key” CCTV footage referenced in the Indictment or otherwise pertinent to the case. See id. And although the CCTV footage the Government obtained and produced comes from various months, the Defendants’ characterization 5 of the production as including “nine months of CCTV footage,” see Resp. at 4, is misleading. The Government obtained footage only from selected cameras (many of which do not continuously record) from selected dates throughout the period for which it obtained footage.
Nearly one-third of the over 800,000 pages consists of non-content email header and
footer information obtained pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 2703(d) for two account holders.
The Government’s response says that in essence, the Defence should trust the Government’s assessment and organization of the documents, and assessment of “key” documents and footage.
The whole point of discovery is to allow the defence the opportunity to review the materials themselves. What is “key” to the Government in prosecuting the case may not be what the defence considers to be “key” to a defence argument.
That leaves approximately 540,000 pages that do contain content.
I’m the opposite of disgusted. I love the idea of seeing the GOP nominate a convicted felon and seeing him crushed at the polls.
I agree, my point was that it’s not that they have nowhere to start but on the first page of the first box. At least they have some idea as to how to locate the things mentioned in the indictment.
I feel like that’s the discovery version of someone saying 'the lottery is a million dollars? pfft, it’ll only be $700k after taxes".
540k pages is still a lot, but it’s also a lot less than 800k pages.
Lets not forget that if he’s nominated he has a very real chance of winning.
Is that what’s going to happen? I hope so… 
I kind of see the delay as a good thing.
Hear me out. It’s being being delayed because there is a ton of evidence. A TON. So much that it will take a team many months to go through and prepare for.
Yes, it delays things, but as I see it the more evidence you have, the more likely you are to convict. And not just convince a jury of 12 people, but convince the American public.
The prosecution is a victim of their own success in a way.
There’s a ton of paper. 98% of it doesn’t prove or disprove the charges, it just got swept up with the other stuff. The government has it, so they’re sharing it, as they should. But the actual evidence they’re going to present to the jury is probably in the range of 200 exhibits and 2 hours of video clips.
Rember, these are not complicated charges. (1) He had documents that the government requested he return. (2) He lied about it. (3) He conspired to hide them. (4) They served a warrant and found many. (5) “but I was president.” (6) Case over.
Suppose Trump is the nominee and he is found guilty. How will the presidential debate work? Will it take place in cell block D?
I think the chatter is that if it’s Trump and Biden, there would be no debate. Neither side has much interest in doing one, apparently.
I would break it down into two categories (really one): (1) Volume of Discovery; (2) CIPA. The delay is really because the CIPA process just takes that long. The Gov’t admitted at the recent hearing that a Dec 2023 trial was “ambitious”. Lawyers who have gone through a CIPA trial think this will not be done prior Nov 2024. Just a heads up.
So again, what is CIPA: “CIPA restructures the timeline for rulings concerning the admissibility of evidence so that courts make all decisions before a trial commences. In short, as the Eleventh Circuit explained…CIPA allows the government to learn the “price” of going ahead with a prosecution before actually doing so.” Meaning, hey Gov’t, the Judge has decided this information will later become public and reveal this particular info during the trial, do you still want to move forward with this case/charge since no one has seen your classified info yet? Normally, with unclassified info, you’d deal with all of these rulings just prior or during trial.
Now we can use the link above that goes over the CIPA process, and compare it to the Judge’s Order. We’ll notice in the Order CIPA Section 3, 4, etc and see what that means. Per Link describing CIPA:
Section 3 requires a court, upon the government’s request, to issue a protective order “against the disclosure of any classified information disclosed by the United States to any defendant in any criminal case.” Notably, such order applies to defense attorneys who need to receive a security clearance to access covered information, as well as to some defendants.
Section 4 allows the government, “upon a sufficient showing,” to either delete certain classified items from a discovery request or, if disclosure is required, provide adequate unclassified summaries or substitutions. Importantly, the government may (and always does) make its showing in an ex parte and in camera hearing. Courts have rejected challenges to this practice on the grounds that it would defeat the purpose of such a hearing if defense counsel were permitted to learn about the potentially excluded information.
Section 5 requires defendants to provide timely pretrial notice of any plan to disclose classified information at trial. This notice must be particularized and applies to whatever classified information that “a defendant reasonably expects to disclose or to cause the disclosure of . . . in any manner in connection with any trial or pretrial proceeding involving the criminal prosecution of such defendant.”
Section 6 is often described as the heart of CIPA. Upon request by the government, the court is required to hold a pretrial evidentiary hearing “to make all determinations concerning the use, relevance, or admissibility of classified information that would otherwise be made during the trial or pretrial proceeding.” Such proceedings may be in camera, although both parties can attend. Should the court determine that certain classified information is admissible and relevant at trial, the government may propose unclassified substitutes, similar to Section 4, provided that the defense is in substantially the same position to make its case.
Section 7 provides for an expedited interlocutory appeal by the government from any decision by a trial court forcing the disclosure of classified information, denying a protective order, and penalizing the retention of classified information.
Per Trial Schedule Order (relevant CIPA hearings only - you won’t find these in other criminal trials; with my super simplified comments in italics, for clarity, not accuracy):
Sec 3 Hearing: Aug 25, 2023; *Protective Order (previous PO was only for unclassified info)
Sec 4 Hearing: Oct 17, 2023; Gov’t does not want to turn over classified info to Defense that is relevant
Sec 5 Notice: Nov 17, 2023; Defense declares what classified info they plan to use at trial
Sec 6a Hearing: Jan 16, 2024; Court declares what is admissible, relevant, will look like, etc.
Sec 6c Hearing: May 14, 2024; Alternatives to disclosing classified info? A summary or Silent witness? *This is not listed in the description above.
Finally, is Sec 7, process to appeal any decisions made at above hearings. This will certainly happen. Let’s say 2-3 months for 1 appeal. May 2024 + 1 appeal = August 2024’ish. Best case scenario.
Hope this helps, very basically, with the unusual process at play in this particular case.
What’s going to be fun is that these trials are going to really mess up Donnie’s campaign schedule. The judges aren’t going to move things around to suit him, and having to be in court rather than out grifting the rubes is going to wear on Dumbo. He’s going to make even more mistakes than usual, which will just add to the dumpster fire that will be his legal defense.
They’re going to need a bigger boat dumpster.
most of the time i was on a jury we got out of the court building between 3:30-4pm. rarely did the time in the jury box go past 4pm.
trump has evenings and weekends to have rallies or campaign. debates are rarely scheduled during the day.
Couldn’t they let him work during the day and have him report back to his cell at night?
I’m interested to hear what you all think of this. (I think/hope it’s accurate.)
If Trump is convicted, he’ll just double down on his bullshit and pull out every stop to win the election, because if he wins he’ll be able to make the convictions go away. So it will still come down to the election.