Delaying Justice
By Richard C. Gross
“Justice delayed is justice denied.”
--William Gladstone, four-time 19th century British prime minister
Special Council Jack Smith, whose tough criminal cases against Donald Trump seem to be evaporating under persistent defense lawyer arguments for trial delays, must be nearing apoplexy as he watches the former president attempt to deceive the courts, the voters and the country with his stalling tactics.
What prosecutor wouldn’t be frustrated when there’s a sense that Trump’s army of lawyers is trying to persuade judges to postpone the start of significant trials ranging from charges of conspiring to overthrow the government to hiding classified documents. Conviction could mean prison.
The incredibly enormous effort to delay the start of trials seems to have less to do with avoiding collisions among court dates for four indictments in four different jurisdictions on charges of 91 felonies than it has to do with running out the clock to the point at which Trump is re-elected, if he is.
If so, he can order his new attorney general to dismiss all of the charges against him. No charges, no trials. Is Trump going to such lengths because he’s afraid the evidence against him is so overwhelming that a jury will convict him and he will be sent to prison?
Aren’t the contorted machinations to secure a potential get-out-of-jail-free card solid indications that something truly is amiss with a presidential candidate already in the hole for about $500 million in fines for being convicted of civil fraud in New York and another $88.3 million for sexually assaulting and then defaming a woman in a department store dressing room.
How well acquainted are the voters and the general public with the legal goings-on over the highly sought make-or-break trial delays. How do we know that Trump is telling the truth? Truth and Trump in the same breath?
Are we not dealing with someone who lied to the people 30,573 times during his presidency, according to The Washington Post. Lying is Trump’s way of life.
Foremost at issue is the Supreme Court decision to take on the thorny issue of whether a sitting president is immune from prosecution, sticking out its tongue at us by waiting as long as possible to hear arguments on the matter while fully cognizant that time is of the essence. It set April 22 to listen to those arguments.
“Delaying the Jan. 6 trial suppresses critical evidence that Americans deserve to hear,” Republican Liz Cheney, one of Trump’s staunchest critics, wrote on X last week. “Donald Trump attempted to overturn an election and seize power. Our justice system must be able to bring him to trial before the next election. SCOTUS should decide this case promptly.”
“The Supreme Court has bestowed a giant gift on Donald Trump,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., a constitutional law professor, told Greg Sargent of the liberal New Republic’s TNR.
To counter that, Sargent wrote Friday, “First, Democrats should stress that voters need to know before the election whether Trump committed crimes – and this is due to them as a matter of right.
“Second, Trump is seeking these delays to end all prosecutions of himself if he regains the White House – to corruptly place himself above the law by pardoning himself or having his handpicked lickspittle attorney general do it.”
Trump has made suckers of us all with his stalling. It’s an example of what more chaos will be like in a second Trump administration
The Supreme Court, of course, didn’t need to put itself front and center in the crucial immunity issue and could have let the appellate court’s decision to reject it just stand. But that wasn’t good enough for the high court’s 6-3 conservative majority, three of whose justices were nominated by Trump.
Whose side do you think those right-wing justices will take?
Also last week, the federal judge in Fort Pierce, Fla., Aileen M. Cannon, punted on a decision about when to begin Trump’s trial on charges of mishandling classified documents. That delayed the trial even further. The proceedings originally were to start May 20. Trump appointed Cannon. She has been a judge for less than four years.
At Cannon’s request, prosecutors asked for a start date of July 8. The defense countered with Aug. 12 but argued a fair trial could not be held until after the election. Fair? To whom? Is the defense playing with the court, with us?
But the prosecutors seem to know completely who they’re dealing with when it comes to Trump.
One of them, Jay I. Bratt, charged Trump’s proposed schedule were “fake dates” offered in “almost bad faith,” The New York Times reported. “Mr. Bratt suggested,” the paper said, “that the defense’s true intention was to simply get a trial date on the books and then ask for further adjournments down the road.”
Oh, yes, the prosecutors know precisely with whom they’re dealing.
Richard C. Gross, who covered war and peace in the Middle East and the Pentagon, was foreign editor of United Press International and the opinion page editor of The Baltimore Sun.