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Donald Trump has complained that he is sitting in court for his criminal trial instead of campaigning.
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His lawyers have reportedly decided not to agree to the terms.
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He could speed things up and get out of it by establishing basic facts.
With the 2024 elections underway, Donald Trump will spend most of the next six weeks in downtown Manhattan, far away from any swing states.
Trump has complained that his ongoing criminal hush-money trial — on 34 counts of falsifying business documents — is hurting his campaign to regain the presidency. He has events planned across the country on Wednesday, the one day of the week the trial will not take place.
“This is a trial that should never have happened,” the former president told reporters in the courtroom hallway Tuesday morning ahead of the second day of jury selection, adding, “I should be in Pennsylvania right now, in Florida, in many other countries. states, in North Carolina, Georgia, campaigning.”
Trump has also complained to reporters that the judge did not immediately rule on his request to take a day off from testimony before his son Barron’s high school graduation in May.
But there is one simple way Trump can speed things up: agree to provisions.
In any trial, the parties have the opportunity to establish a certain number of facts. This eliminates the need for attorneys to present witnesses and present evidence that establishes issues that are not really in dispute.
“Procedures can be boring to a large extent, and the interesting part can be about 10% of what happens. And it is not unusual for the parties to determine the admissibility of undisputed evidence or even certain facts that are not an issue. to avoid the need to call unnecessary witnesses,” explains former Manhattan prosecutor Mark Bederow.
For example, the current lawsuit against Trump centers on his hush money payments to Stormy Daniels, who says she had an affair with Trump about a decade before he became president.
The payments were facilitated by Trump’s ex-personal attorney and former fixer Michael Cohen, who worked with Trump to keep Daniels quiet about the alleged relationship ahead of the 2016 presidential election, according to prosecutors from the Manhattan district attorney’s office.
According to The Washington Post, Trump’s legal team has decided to promise nothing and fight over everything.
In the Daniels saga, there are several issues that Trump may want to challenge.
Perhaps his lawyers will deny that the affair ever took place. Perhaps he will say that Cohen acted on his own accord when he facilitated the payments to Daniels, an adult film actress whose real name is Stephanie Clifford.
But there are also many facts that are not really up for debate. Such as the fact that Cohen worked as Trump’s personal attorney in 2016. Or that Daniels and Trump knew each other.
(Daniels and Trump were photographed together in 2006, and Daniels attended a Trump vodka event the following year.)
If Trump were to confirm these facts — and others — lawyers in the case could save a lot of time by not having to establish those basic details in court.
Judges are normally happy when both parties in a dispute record details. It means they have fewer disputes to settle and everything can move faster.
While a provision could certainly speed up the legal process, it is within Trump’s legal right to “test the people,” Bederow, a criminal defense attorney, told Business Insider.
“It adds to the boredom factor and, from Trump’s perspective, to length and is consistent with his approach, which is: fight every conceivable point under the sun, no matter how big, small, relevant or irrelevant,” he said.
This may be “frustrating” for the court in a practical sense, Bederow said, but Trump “has the right to do it.”
“He has the right to use any mechanism within the rules of evidence to require them to prove their case,” Bederow said.
But the idea that Trump has complained that his lawsuit has prevented him from participating in the campaign process, while the strategy reported by his own lawyers is to slow things down by promising nothing, is a “perfect illustration,” Bederow said, ” In my view, the conflict between criminally accused Trump and the Republican candidate Trump.”
“The longer the case goes on, the more boring it is, and the less exotic testimony there is, the less connection it has to the central issues – the defense may feel like that’s helpful,” Bederow said.
Still, the former prosecutor added, these tactics can only go so far.
“To the extent that the purpose of the exercise was to postpone until after the election, that ship has sailed,” Bederow said.
“Even if he delays these provisions, at worst you’re talking a few days,” Bederow said. ‘That’s not going to solve his problem’
Lawyers for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday about their lunch break.
Spokespeople for the Public Prosecution Service also did not immediately respond.
Read the original article on Business Insider
