Neal Katyal Says Trump’s Bid To Delay Jan. 6 Trial Gives Away The Game
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One former top Justice Department official thinks Donald Trump’s request to move his federal Jan. 6 trial to April 2026 is a telltale sign. (See the video below.)
Neal Katyal, who served as acting solicitor general in the Obama administration, told MSNBC’s Joy Reid on Thursday that the proposed move suggests the former president’s “consciousness of guilt.”
Asked whether such a delay was “laughable,” Katyal responded: “Laughable gives it so much credit, Joy. I don’t actually have adjectives in my vocabulary, at least not ones I can say on television.”
“If you’re innocent, if you’re you or me and we’re accused of launching a coup and subverting democracy and launching Jan. 6, you’d want this trial right away, you’d want to clear your name,” Katyal continued. “But, no, this guy, this guy’s scared of going to trial.”
The criminal case is one of four Trump is currently facing. In this one, special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment accuses the former president of trying to subvert the 2020 election. Smith is eyeing a Jan. 2, 2024, start date, which he says would result in “an appropriately speedy trial in the public interest and in the interests of justice.”
“He talks all the bluster he wants outside the courtroom but he is terrified of actually being in the courtroom, and when he is in one, he clams up,” Katyal said. “So to me, this is just further indicia of his own consciousness of guilt. ... I think that it tells us a lot about his own state of mind.”
Trump’s attorneys argue an April 2026 start date is necessary in the “unprecedented case” because they have to review 11.5 million pages of documents.
“I’ve never in my 20-plus years of practicing law seen a request anything like that, and I’ll eat my hat if Judge [Tanya] Chutkan accepts it,” Katyal said. “Because, look, justice delayed is justice denied.”
Watch the entire segment below:
