So Trump’s Trial Delay Tactics Really Worked, Huh?

Keeping up with Donald Trump’s court schedule is a dizzying task, since he faces two federal trials, a criminal trial in Georgia, and two separate civil and criminal trials in New York. (Oh, and he’s running for president.) To make it easier to follow along, each Monday we’ll be looking back on all the Trump trial–related developments you might have missed the previous week.

Donald Trump’s favorite legal strategy—to delay, delay, and delay some more—appears to be working after a judge postponed his New York hush money trial, which was supposed to start next week. And in Georgia, embattled District Attorney Fani Willis has managed to stay on as the prosecutor in the election interference RICO case. Meanwhile, in Florida, a judge resisted the former president’s request to dismiss charges in special counsel Jack Smith’s classified documents case.

Now it’s unclear when the first Trump criminal trial might start.* That’s because last week New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan postponed the hush money trial, brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, until mid-April and it could be delayed further. It was supposed to start March 25.

Trump’s attorneys asked Merchan to delay the trial for at least 90 days—or, you know, to just dismiss the entire thing—after they received thousands of new documents from the U.S. attorney’s office. And, surprising everyone, the Manhattan DA didn’t oppose the delay. In fact, Bragg said his office would be OK with a 30-day delay because it similarly received “approximately 31,000 pages of records.”

All these documents came from federal prosecutors who were responding to a subpoena that Trump’s legal team served them in early January. According to Bragg’s latest court filing, the former president’s lawyers “consented to repeated extensions” that USAO asked for in order to fulfill the subpoena. And it wasn’t until last week that federal prosecutors began sending the thousands of requested documents to both Trump’s legal team and Bragg’s.

The Manhattan DA also asked USAO for documents over a year ago, when building his hush money case, but was provided only a portion of what he requested. Nevertheless, Bragg was given grand jury minutes, witness lists, exhibits presented to the grand jury, and more related information and shared it with Trump’s attorneys as part of standard discovery on June 8, 2023—over nine months ago.

It appears the USAO is now responding to a mix of document requests from Trump and Bragg, and it’s unclear why it’s happening so late, with the initial schedule for the trial less than two weeks away. Bragg has blamed the former president, since his attorneys filed a subpoena two months out from trial. “The timing of the USAO’s production is a result solely of the defendant’s delay despite the People’s diligence,” wrote Bragg.

Merchan has scheduled a hearing on March 25 instead to address why the records took so long to be sent over and to assess when a new trial date should be set.

“Countless hours negotiating with one of the largest insurance companies in the world have proven that obtaining an appeal bond in the full amount of the judgment is not possible under the circumstances present,” wrote Trump’s attorneys in a new court filing submitted to a New York appeals court on Monday.

The former president can’t cough up the $454 million judgment he owes in the New York civil fraud case that he lost last month. Trump and his two adult sons were charged with fraud for overinflating the value of their real estate assets in order to secure bank loans and better insurance premiums. And though his lawyers are appealing Justice Arthur Engoron’s verdict, Trump still has to post bond. Except, even after consulting with “about 30 surety companies through four separate brokers,” Trump has been unable to do so. His attorneys explained that most bonding companies won’t even consider supporting a bond of this magnitude and that the few that will don’t accept hard assets—aka real estate—as collateral, making the task of securing bond a “practical impossibility.”

Given this, Trump’s attorneys suggested that the former president’s bond be lowered to a smaller amount or be waived entirely, something they argued routinely happens when securing bond is not “practicable.”

If Trump cannot post bond by March 25, New York Attorney General Letitia James will be allowed to begin seizing Trump’s assets.

Last week was a whirlwind for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. Judge Scott McAfee announced that Willis’ election interference indictment against Trump and others could remain in place—but only if Willis or special prosecutor Nathan Wade stepped down. Within hours of that decision, Wade submitted his letter of resignation, cementing Willis’ position on the case.

McAfee outlined Willis’ options in a Friday morning decision that followed a dramatic, dayslong court hearing that laid out misconduct allegations brought by Ashleigh Merchant, an attorney representing Mike Roman—who was charged alongside Trump and 17 others in Willis’ indictment. She accused Willis of dating Wade, then hiring him to work on her investigation. That created a conflict of interest, Merchant argued, because Wade paid for vacations for himself and Willis with funds he earned from Fulton County. Willis and Wade testified under oath that their relationship began in 2022, after Wade was hired, and that they split travel expenses, with Willis paying Wade back for her portion.

McAfee concluded that dismissal of Willis’ indictment was “not the appropriate remedy” and that Merchant and Trump’s attorney Steven Sadow failed to prove that Willis had a conflict of interest in hiring Wade and prosecuting her case. However, McAfee believes that Willis and Wade’s former romantic relationship still creates a “significant appearance of impropriety that infects the current structure of the prosecution team.”

Though Willis ultimately defeated the misconduct allegations, there could still be trouble brewing for her. Merchant and Trump’s attorneys could appeal McAfee’s ruling, especially since the judge acknowledged in his decision that those who testified during the hearing may not have been entirely truthful. “An odor of mendacity remains,” wrote McAfee.

McAfee ruled that three of Trump’s charges related to pressuring Georgia state officials to change the 2020 election results didn’t hold enough detail to merit a felony offense. He now faces 10 counts instead of 13.

McAfee found that the charges stemming from Trump’s infamous phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, in which he demanded that the secretary find 11,780 votes to overturn Joe Biden’s victory, were “too generic.” That’s because, in the DA’s charging documents, she argues that defendants solicited elected officials, including Raffensperger, to violate their oaths to the Georgia Constitution and the U.S. Constitution but didn’t specify what section of these constitutions was in question. “The lack of detail concerning an essential legal element is, in the undersigned’s opinion, fatal,” wrote McAfee. And that makes for an impossible task for the defense, since “the defendants could have violated the Constitution and thus the statute in dozens, if not hundreds, of distinct ways.”

The judge’s ruling is a win not only for Trump. McAfee dismissed six total charges from Willis’ 41-count indictment, affecting Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows and attorneys Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Robert Cheeley, and Ray Smith III. However, McAfee left the door open for Willis to refile the dismissed charges with more context included or to appeal his decision.

“This does not mean the entire indictment is dismissed,” McAfee said.

Trump-appointed Judge Aileen Cannon said the charges brought by special counsel Jack Smith in his classified documents indictment can remain in place, rejecting the former president’s request to toss 32 of 40 felony counts.

Cannon’s decision came shortly after Trump and his attorneys, alongside prosecutors for Smith, debated the matter in a Florida courtroom for over three hours last week. Throughout the hearing, Cannon seemed skeptical of the former president’s claims that the law banning the unlawful retention of national defense information was unconstitutionally vague, saying that dismissing charges on that basis would be an “extraordinary step.” She also said that Trump’s claim that he held unlimited authority to decide which documents from the White House could be considered personal would “gut” the Presidential Records Act. Cannon also repeatedly said that the arguments posed by Trump’s attorneys were better suited for a jury to decide.

The outcome of the hearing was a small win for the special counsel, as Cannon still must decide on Trump’s motion to dismiss the entire classified documents indictment and has yet to issue a trial date.