How Trump’s legal fight against indictment could drag the process all the way through the elections

Former President Donald Trump’s longtime scorched-earth legal strategy is about to crash into the looming Republican presidential primary schedule, and his own stance will influence whether Stormy Daniels’ case makes headlines during the early primaries. .

A common case of the kind for which Trump has been indicted in New York could be dismissed within six months. But the Trump case, a sealed indictment that includes 34 counts and appears to raise complex issues of federal and state charges, leaves room for several challenges. Trump’s lawyers are already saying they plan to fight.

By resurrecting the ‘zombie case’ charges to be unsealed on Tuesday, District Attorney Alvin Bragg has put Trump in the position to plot how his legal battle could overlap with his bid to retake the White House.

‘I don’t think this is a coincidence. Admittedly, this peculiar strategy by the New York prosecutor is quite ingenious in using Mr. Trump’s style, his past conduct, his strategy of delay and attrition against him,” said David Shapiro, a former FBI agent and financial fraud specialist. He teaches at John Jay College in New York.

“The longer you delay, the closer you get to 2024,” he said. But if Trump goes for a ‘delay, delay, delay, delay’ strategy, it’s tantamount to saying, ‘go cut your knees,’ he added.

Trump’s impeachment has already rocked the political field, as the former president flew from Mar-a-Lago to New York on Monday.

Trump used a group of lawyers and an aggressive stance to run out time on a House Democratic push for his tax returns through the end of his presidency, in a case that went all the way to the Supreme Court.

In the case of Stormy Daniels, who has filed multiple charges of falsifying business records and a Class E felony, Trump’s attorney, Joseph Tacopina, has already said he would fight “very aggressively.”

‘There is very little doubt that Tacopina’s team will litigate everything. They are going to defy anything they can to delay,” said Dan Feldman, a John Jay law professor who teaches supervision and investigation and served in the Eliot Spitzer administration.

There have already been hints that the Trump team might try to change the venue, which could set things back if the judge allowed it.

One expert pointed to District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s “ingenious” strategy, in which, if Trump delays, it could work against him.

A Manhattan grand jury voted to indict former President Donald Trump for money paid to silence porn star Stormy Daniels

Like any motion, it would require the judge to allow the opposing party to respond.

Trump continues to actively and vehemently protest against the judge assigned to the case, Juan Merchan, saying that he ‘HATES ME’.

But Tacopina told ABC’s ‘This Week’ that he ‘didn’t think the judge was biased. ‘Do I think the judge is biased? Of course not,’ she said.

Still, prosecutors could move to try to block Tacopina from representing Trump because of his past communications with Daniels when the porn star who is key in the case was looking for a lawyer.

A series of delays could postpone a result until after the November election. But it could also juxtapose key moments, including hearings, motions, jury selection and arguments, with crucial parts of the campaign, even though Trump has seen a rise in the polls since the impeachment.

The first Republican presidential debate, on Fox News, is scheduled for August in Milwaukee.

That’s about six months before Iowa Republicans hold their caucuses, quickly followed by the New Hampshire primary in early 2024.

Other milestones include the Iowa State Fair, which will begin on August 10.