Donald Trump trial delays could have "cascading effect"

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Khaleda Rahman

By Khaleda Rahman

National Correspondent

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Small delays to Donald Trump's court dates could have a "cascading effect"on his trials, as he continues his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, according to a former federal prosecutor.

Trump, the frontrunner for the nomination, has sought to delay his criminal trials until after the 2024 election. Voting in the Iowa caucuses, the opening contest in the months-long Republican presidential primary process, begins on Monday.

"Politics aside, it's the start of an inevitable round of demands by the former president to delay his court cases until after the election," Joyce Vance, a former U.S. attorney in Alabama, wrote in her Substack newsletter.

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Trump's 2020 election interference case in Washington was once considered likely to be the first of his four criminal trials to begin this year. It is scheduled for March 4, but U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan in December put the case on hold while Trump pursues his claims that he is immune from prosecution—a process that could delay the start of the trial for months.

Former President Donald Trump leaves a rally

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Another criminal case brought by special counsel Jack Smith charges Trump with illegally hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida and obstructing government efforts to get them back. That trial is due to begin May 20, but Judge Aileen Cannon, who is presiding over that case, has pushed back multiple deadlines and signaled that she would be open to revisiting the trial date during a pretrial conference set for March.

Meanwhile, a New York case charging Trump with falsifying business records in connection with hush money payments to a porn actress is set to go to trial on March 25. Trump's team requested a postponement in that trial, prompting Judge Juan Manuel Merchant to tell Trump's attorney that prosecutors and defense attorneys can discuss changes to the trial schedule at a pretrial hearing in February, when they will have a better idea of whether "there are any actual conflicts" requiring a delay.

A trial date hasn't been set in the Georgia case charging Trump and others over their efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has asked for the defendants to be tried together beginning August 5, but Trump's lawyer said it would "be the most effective election interference" to stage a trial in the final months of the election campaign.

"While most judges are likely to reject the absolute notion that Trump can't be tried until it's over because he's running for office, the question is how judges will react to specific requests for delays because of a primary or an event on a set date," Vance wrote in her newsletter.

"Even these sorts of smallish delays can have a cascading effect. And at least one judge, Aileen Cannon in the classified documents case, may be more sympathetic overall."

Trump has pleaded not guilty to the charges in all four cases, and decried them as politically motivated efforts to derail his bid to reclaim the White House in 2024.

"For someone who denies any wrongdoing and has repeatedly said the charges against him are a political witch hunt, Trump is in no hurry to have his day in court so a jury can clear his name," Vance added.

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