Former president and 2024 candidate Donald Trump was indicted on 37 charges related to his withholding of classified documents after leaving office. Already charged with crimes in New York (regarding the hush money paid to porn star Stormy Daniels) and unlikely to be the last he faces (the Georgia election interference case looms on the horizon) this marks the first federal prosecution he must face in person. What next? Unlike other legal proceedings he’s faced, these courts like to get a move on.
He will surrender to the authorities, be processed and then be taken before the judge. It is unlikely that Trump will be in handcuffs during this process. …
“You can expect a criminal case to be resolved within six months of an indictment issuing,” Walter Norkin, a former federal prosecutor in the Southern District of Florida, told ABC News. “The judges in the Southern District of Florida adhere very strictly to the Speedy Trial clock, which, with limited exceptions, requires trial or conviction to occur within 70 days.”
Special counsel Jack Smith also stressed that his office would push for a speedy trial “consistent with the public interest and the rights of the accused,” during a news conference Friday after the indictment was unsealed.
The first hurdle for prosecutors: the assigned judge, Aileen Cannon, was appointed by Trump and could choose to sink the prosecution, writes Salon’s Mark Joseph Stern. She already has a record of treating him favorably during the investigation that led to it.
