Former U.S. President Donald Trump delivers remarks at a rally in Pickens, South Carolina, on July 1.Though his campaign slogan is still “Make America Great Again,” Donald Trump’s new legal filing seems to suggest another motto: Keep Me Out of Jail 2024.
Their 12-page filing asks U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon to reject the Department of Justice’s request for a December trial date. Instead, the filing asks her to postpone it indefinitely, and certainly after the 2024 presidential election. Norm Eisen, a former lawyer in Barack Obama’s White House who worked for the House prosecution team during Trump’s first impeachment, said there is little question that Trump, as head of the executive branch, could make his federal cases go away and fire special counsel Jack Smith.
“Remember that it has been the Justice Department’s position since 1974 that a sitting president cannot constitutionally be prosecuted for a crime,” he said. “So the new Trump political appointees could point to that to justify terminating the prosecution.
Smith last month procured an indictment charging Trump with 37 felony counts that could send him to prison for decades. The special counsel is also pursuing an investigation into Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss, culminating in his Jan. 6, 2021, coup attempt.