Legal experts are speculating how former President Donald Trump could deflect charges in Florida and potentially push the trial past the 2024 presidential election.
The shocking 37 charges were unsealed last week — the embattled Republican frontrunner expected to plead not guilty and claims he mishandled classified documents — in a Miami court Tuesday.
However, the president faces several possible avenues for defeating the case, including the bare facts that this is an unprecedented challenge for a former commander in chief.
And Trump only needs to convince one juror to result in a mistrial, which could destroy the case altogether.
The vast powers vested in the presidency mean Special Counsel Jack Smith must prove that Trump was acting criminally by showing off documents he was previously allowed to freely share as president.
“One of the big challenges Jack Smith faces is convincing each of those 12 jurors that it may be a criminal offense for Trump to share documents that he freely shared a few years earlier when he was president. . Rob Kelner, an attorney who deals with national security matters, told the Wall Street Journal.
Legal experts speculate how former President Donald Trump could deflect charges in Florida and potentially push the trial past the 2024 presidential election
William Devaney, former federal prosecutor and partner at Baker McKenzie, adds that all Trump needs for a hung jury is “one juror who feels Donald Trump has been treated unfairly.”
Trump’s reluctance to cooperate with the investigation may actually benefit him by supporting his insistence that the Justice Department had bias against him.
And the ex-president’s lawyers may also try to reduce the charges themselves, with the news citing a letter written in April by Trump’s lawyers to Republicans in Congress saying this was all “the result of haphazard record-keeping and packing.”
Lawyers also said they had “absolutely no indication that President Trump knowingly possessed any of the flagged documents or was intentionally violating any laws.”
Kelner also believes the Trump team could simply claim that while it was certainly not by the book to share the classified documents, he never gave them to foreigners or “hostile actors.”
A separate one Politics op-ed said Trump’s case is highly unlikely to end before November 2024, keeping him active in the race.
“Every national security case comes with additional hurdles that make a speedy process difficult,” wrote Renato Mariotti.
People pass the Wilkie D. Ferguson Jr. United States Federal Courthouse where former President Donald Trump will appear on June 11
DOJ discovered boxes of potentially classified documents in a Mar-a-Lago bathroom
“Trump’s lawyers will need to be allowed to review classified material, a special order will need to be put in place to ensure the material is properly protected, and fights are likely to ensue over classified material discovered by the government.” provided.’
Mariotti adds that “the ball is in Trump’s court” and he could postpone the trial for as long as necessary.
“The end result is that the proceedings of this unprecedented case will float across the electoral landscape for the whole of next year and potentially well into the administration of the next president, whoever that is.”
The 76-year-old said Thursday he was told he was being charged with espionage — the first time in US history a former president has faced federal charges.
Trump faces four separate charges each carrying a potential 20-year prison sentence: conspiracy to obstruct justice; withholding any document or record; corruptly concealing any document or record; and hiding a document in a federal investigation.
One count carries a 10-year prison sentence: deliberately withholding national defense information.
And the last two counts each have a maximum of five years: plan to conceal and misrepresentations and misrepresentations. Trump’s indictment remains classified, but his decision to make it public means the FBI could open it as early as Friday, ahead of next Tuesday’s Miami court hearing.
The news drew outrage from the Republican party, with even his 2024 rival Ron DeSantis declaring that “the arming of federal law enforcement poses a deadly threat to a free society.” DeSantis did not say whether he would pardon his rival if Trump were convicted, despite calls for Florida’s governor to commit.
Trump himself — who was in Bedminster, New Jersey when news of the indictment broke — denounced the indictment in an excerpt that the New York Times said was pre-recorded, saying it was political persecution, saying: ” I am innocent.’
Trump will make his first public appearance this weekend at a rally in Georgia
Donald Trump supporters at Columbus Airport, Columbus, Georgia, Saturday
Extraordinary new photos (above) revealed in the damning filing explain how Trump clerk Walt Nauta walked into a storage unit and found intelligence files on allies, including the United Kingdom and Australia, on the floor
He will appear in court in Miami on Tuesday at 3 p.m. where charges against him will be filed. Trump denies all the allegations he faces.
Jack Smith, the special counsel overseeing the investigation, has not commented.
He was indicted in Manhattan in April on charges of making hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels – those allegations, too, were historic.
But the classified information charges are federal and significantly more serious, carrying hefty prison sentences.
Prosecutors have been investigating the transfer of presidential files to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida since last year.
The investigation made headlines in August when the FBI searched Trump’s Florida home and recovered 11,000 documents, including about 100 classified as classified.
For his part, Trump has repeatedly maintained that he has done nothing wrong and that he is the victim of a federal witch hunt.
At times, the controversy has even boosted his standing in the polls and allowed him to raise money from supporters who see a “deep state” plot to take him out of the 2024 race.
“The corrupt Biden administration has informed my lawyers that I have been charged, apparently because of the Boxes Hoax, even though Joe Biden has 1,850 Boxes at the University of Delaware, additional Boxes in Chinatown, D.C., and more Boxes at the University of Pennsylvania, and documents scattered across his garage floor where he parks his Corvette, which is “secured” only by a garage door that is paper thin and open much of the time,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Thursday night.
“I have been subpoenaed to appear at the Federal Courthouse in Miami at 3:00 p.m. Tuesday. I never imagined that something like this could happen to a former president of the United States, who has received far more votes than any sitting president in the history of our country, and currently leads the vast majority of candidates, both Democrat and the president. Republican, in 2024 presidential election polls. I’M AN INNOCENT MAN!’
He released a video later on Thursday night.
“Unfortunately we are a nation in decline and yet they are chasing after a very popular president,” Trump said.
“I’m an innocent man, I’ve done nothing wrong,” he continued, promising to “fight this out.”
In an interview with Fox News Digital, Trump also said he would “of course” plead not guilty.
Security around the Miami courthouse is already being heightened ahead of his appearance before a judge, scheduled for 3 p.m. on Tuesday.
The investigation into Trump’s handling of classified documents is overseen by a special counsel, Jack Smith, who was appointed in November by Attorney General Merrick Garland.