I am not a New York lawyer, nor a criminal lawyer, nor Donald Trump’s lawyer on this bogus NYC case, but I am an observer, and some time has passed since my initial thoughts on his strategy, and what I have observed baffles me. He’s clearly being framed by the tubby tyrant using his Soros-subsidized sinecure to try to rig the 2024 election. The charges are laughable or would be if they did not represent further undermining of the foundations of a free society that should remind our trash elite of how the same kind of extra-political, pseudo-judicial antics undermined the foundation of the Roman Republic. Or it would, if our overly-college credentialed ruling caste was not so chronically undereducated.
In any case, the sham proceedings are proceeding, but so slowly and so inexplicably that I cannot imagine anything other than that his legal team has some sort of plan, though their strategy is utterly opaque to me. I know some of his civil lawyers and they are very good. I do not know his criminal lawyers, and I do not know what they are thinking. I would move fast, but they are not (yet). The next court appearance is in December 2023! Motions will not even be filed until August. The trial would likely be in 2024, right in the middle of the election.
What the hey?
New York has a speedy trial law – I do not see why the legal team is not demanding one. No extensions. No continuances. Summon the jury. Let’s go.
And I do not understand why, within the week after the shameful, fraudulent arraignment, the legal team did not drop a flurry of motions. Motions are important – they shape the battlefield. I love motions. You cannot lose with a motion. You ask for something – to drop a charge, to exclude evidence, for the moon – and the worst you can get is a “No,” meaning you are no worse off than before. Motions are key. Here’s a defense secret – you never want to go to a jury. Why? Because you can lose in front of a jury. You want to fight on the most favorable ground, where the worst that can happen is the status quo, and that means motions.
My strategy would have been to get the legal wheels in motion while recognizing that this is not a legal case – if it was based on law, it would not exist – but a political one, and that is where the real fight is. I would recognize that the NY state judiciary cannot be relied upon to deliver a fair, legal result on issues of law so that the most likely legal result would be victory after NY state legal proceedings have been exhausted and the case was taken up (maybe – it is discretionary) by SCOTUS based on some of the troubling federal law issues at play.
That means the real fight is in the court of public opinion, and the purpose of aggressive early motions would be to not only initiate the process that legally euthanizes this frame job way down the road – making legally meritless motions is improper and counter-productive, so none of the actions I recommend are frivolous even if they are not certain to be granted – but to also show the people just what a reeking heap of garbage this whole shameful set-up is. And I would have had my folks working on them before the disgusting arrest charade.
Keep in mind that NY criminal procedure might label these motions differently and set up specific timeframes for them. I’m not going to research Empire State law; take these as general ideas and tactics in support of a strategy that assumes no appropriate legal relief in the state courts and focuses on getting legitimate legal challenges underway while demonstrating to the public that this is yet another malicious vendetta against a politician unpopular with the ruling class.
The first step would be to address the issue of the judge and the objective perception of bias he presents. His daughter apparently worked for Kamala – maybe she still does. And the judge wrote checks to Democrats. That’s bias in the eyes of a reasonable person. Perhaps this judge is superhuman and can put his personal feelings – feelings strong enough that each election cycle he whips out his checkbook – and rule fairly and impartially. Perhaps, but irrelevant. The appearance of bias is manifest; that is intolerable in a free society, but then we stopped being that a while ago.
Bet that the judge will keep the case – it is terribly hard to disqualify a judge, but this is a legitimate legal issue. It is also a political one – to normal people, the idea that a political opponent of a political candidate in the dock can be the judge stinks. Normal people see that it is unfair because it is unfair. Make the motion. Let the judge hearing it deny it, which will almost inevitably happen though it has merit. Get the appellate work underway, and let the leftists explain why it is totally fine, OK, even mandatory, that a facially impartial judge preside. That’s a bad look, and that foul odor will attach to the upcoming bogus charges that are coming from elsewhere.
Next, move to get the case transferred to a different venue where the jury pool is not 110% rabid anti-Trump partisans. That motion would have merit, and will probably lose too. But the appellate process will get underway, and Trump will have highlighted another shamefully unfair ploy designed to facilitate the frame job.
Then move to dismiss the charges, but not all at once. Parcel out the separate grounds to focus on each separate grounds in conformity with NY practice. Seek to dismiss based on a selective prosecution theory. Felonia Mihous von Pantsuit “mischaracterized” campaign spending regarding the pee-pee dossier but she was not charged and that had a huge political effect. Why charge Trump but not her? Again, it has legal merit but will likely lose – it is shamefully hard to enforce the equal application of the law – but it gets the appellate process moving and this will once again show the people just what a steaming cesspool this is.
And then move to dismiss on the substantive grounds – this is a non-crime where the allegations are far outside the statute of limitations. Others have gone into detail on why this case is terrible, so I will not repeat why this set of charges is to the law as Rage Against the Machine is to good music. There is a non-zero chance this mess gets dismissed, in whole or part, within the state courts because it is simply such transparent nonsense that even hardcore liberals might pause before flushing their reputations by signing off on it. I expect that if they do not do their duty, SCOTUS might (though most likely that result would come after a trial and conviction).
And if all that fails, why not try it ASAP and get it done and the post-trial appeals going? Why set a trial for election season? Is this 5D chess? Should we trust the plan? Does Trump think it helps him to be in a criminal trial during the height of the election, especially when he has two other sets of baseless charges coming?
I don’t know. I would move aggressively. They do not seem to be doing that. I don’t get it. Maybe I am missing something. Maybe not. Maybe Donald Trump thinks being in trial throughout 2024 will help him. I don’t just don’t see it.
Follow Kurt on Twitter @KurtSchlichter. Get Inferno, the seventh book in the Kelly Turnbull People's Republic series of conservative action novels set in America after a notional national divorce, as well as his non-fiction book We’ll Be Back: The Fall and Rise of America.
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