The decision to begin former President Donald Trump's trial just months before the 2024 presidential election is "perplexing" to former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance, Newsweek reported. Trump is being tried in Fulton County, Georgia, for supposed election interference.
A grand jury had voted in August to indict Trump and 18 others on charges pertaining to the alleged plot to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia. Trump has pleaded not guilty to 13 charges, so District Attorney Fani Willis set the date for a trial.
Curiously, the trial is set to begin on Aug. 5, which means the former president will begin proceedings just three months before Election Day 2024, when Trump could retake the White House. In theory, Trump could be sworn in even as his case was being litigated.
This is happening at a time when Trump faces other trials in other states much sooner. He will appear in a Florida court in May to answer for possible mishandling of classified documents seized from his Mar-a-Lago residence.
That case could be adjudicated well before the election season ramps up for the odds-on GOP frontrunner. However,Vance found Willis's reluctance to set a sooner date "a little perplexing."
The judge assigned to the Georgia election case, Judge Scott MacAfee, will ultimately decide when the trial does begin. "With Judge Aileen Cannon in Florida showing signs of being less than committed to her May trial schedule, there might be some room for an earlier date in Georgia, which makes the timing of Willis' request a little perplexing," Vance wrote on her blog.
"The Mar-a-Lago case is straightforward, and it's hard to imagine it taking more than several weeks, at the outside, to try. We may gain some insight Friday on when Judge McAfee wants to try his case."
However, it seems Willis is committed to making sure this case is tried as ballots are being cast. "I believe the trial will take many months," she admitted in an interview.
"And I don't expect that we will conclude until the winter or the very early part of 2025. I don't, when making decisions about cases to bring, consider any election cycle or an election season," Willis claimed.
If she gets her way and Trump gets his, the country will be wading into uncharted waters. As the new president, Trump could have many tools at his disposal to make the trial go away, but scholars are still unsure of how that would shake out.
"Of course, as with many things Trump, we lack a precedent," Stephen Gillers, a law professor at New York University, told Newsweek. "But I believe that the Supreme Court would order a delay of any state criminal prosecution of a sitting president until the end of his term, regardless of when the alleged crime occurred."
The left may be hedging their bets by recycling the failed playbook to either distract him or convict him with these trials. During the election and even after taking office the first time around, Trump had to contend with the Russia collusion hoax.
Then-FBI officials revealed that they saw the accusation as an "insurance policy" to take Trump out even if he won the 2016 presidential election, Fox News reported. They felt they could either mire him down with endless investigations or take him out with a conviction.
Fortunately, Trump's adversaries may prove just as wrong this time around. It's utterly transparent to the American people that these charges and trials are a political ploy of the worst kind, and they'll remember that at the ballot box.
