CNN: ‘Donald Trump’s Plan To Use Judge Cannon to Block Judge Chutkan & Avoid Trial’

Source:CNN looking at Defendant Don's criminal cases.

Source:The New Democrat

“Former President Donald Trump’s lawyers see a major opportunity this week to use his criminal document mishandling case in Florida to create an impasse on his calendar for the two federal judges overseeing his major criminal cases.

Juggling his campaign and court calendar and playing his cases off one another is a key part of Trump’s legal strategy. The ultimate goal, his team has said openly, is to prevent Trump from being tried in federal court before voters cast their ballots in the 2024 general election.

A primary aim for Trump’s legal team, according to people familiar with the strategy, is to put the judge in DC overseeing the 2020 federal election obstruction case, Tanya Chutkan, in a position where she can’t start a trial before Election Day.

“Meaning, ice her,” said a person familiar with Trump’s trial schedule strategy. “Making it impossible for her to jam a trial down before the election, by things that are out of her control.”

Chutkan set an initial trial date for March 4, which has been delayed indefinitely because of appeals. Yet if the Supreme Court returns the case to Chutkan, that trial could be back on the calendar within a month or two.

One way to hamper Chutkan is to convince the judge in Florida, Aileen Cannon, to move Trump’s Mar-a-Lago document mishandling trial from late May until the summer.

Then, as summer approaches, the Mar-a-Lago case may require Cannon to push the trial back again and again because of the legal complexities around classified documents that still have to be worked out, according to people familiar with the case.

Then, as summer approaches, the Mar-a-Lago case may require Cannon to push the trial back again and again because of the legal complexities around classified documents that still have to be worked out, according to people familiar with the case.

Trump has already asked the federal judges and a state judge in a third criminal case he faces, the Georgia election subversion case, to delay any trials until after the November election. Both federal judges, Chutkan and Cannon, have said no. But a gradually shifting calendar could be just as effective at shielding Trump from other trials through the summer, multiple sources familiar with the former president’s legal strategy told CNN.

Cannon has signaled a willingness in recent months to considering pushing back the date. And the prosecutors and defense teams are engaged in protracted court fights over access to evidence – classified records and information from far corners of the federal government – that Cannon still has to resolve. Cannon is a Trump appointee in an area of Florida with many Trump voters in a potential jury pool. She drew bipartisan criticism in the legal world for how she handled an earlier part of the case and has moved slowly to resolve the pretrial issues.

Chutkan’s court is an entirely different profile – where the Washington, DC, jury pool leans liberal and has convicted many January 6, 2021, rioters at trials. Chutkan is a Barack Obama appointee who ruled against Trump on the key issue of the case – presidential immunity – and also issued a limited gag order against the former president.”

From CNN

“Former President Donald Trump’s lawyers see a major opportunity to use his criminal document mishandling case in Florida to create an impasse on his calendar for the two federal judges overseeing his major criminal cases. Juggling his campaign and court calendar and playing his cases off one another is a key part of Trump’s legal strategy.”

From CNN

“CNN analyst Elie Honig reacts to Former President Donald Trump’s legal team is trying to use his mishandling of criminal documents in Florida to cause a scheduling conflict with the federal judges handling his major cases.”

From CNN

I can’t repeat this enough, but I’m not a lawyer. But what Donald Trump wants is his friendly judge in Miami, Judge Aileen Cannon, to go first and then delay that trial as much as possible, so he’s not only not convicted there before November, but Judge Tanya Chutkan’s trial in Washington wouldn’t even be able to get started before the election.

But there’s one glaring weakness to this latest Trump strategy. If the Supreme Court throws out both Donald Trump’s stay when it comes to his presidential immunity claim, then the Washington case goes back to Judge Chutkan and then she can put that trial back on her calendar and it could be ready by let’s say May, but the time the Manhattan trial with Donald Trump should be over.

So if everything goes the way it should here, Donald Trump is tried and convicted probably by late April, or early May in Manhattan, New York and then he goes back to Washington to be tried there in May, maybe June and that case is finish by the end of the summer.