Trump’s Criminal Defense Strategy: Delay, Disrupt, Throw S–t Against the Wall and Hope Something Sticks

As you’ve probably heard by now, Donald Trump is in most serious legal peril of his entire life, having been indicted a whopping four times in less than five months, which could put him in prison for many, many years. But it’s important to remember that long before he was slapped with 91 felony counts, Trump was involved in literally thousands of lawsuits—and because of this, he developed a go-to legal strategy centered on one singular move: stall, stall, and stall some more. Did it matter if he had a legal leg to stand on? No! All that was important was that he delayed any proceedings against him in an effort to ultimately avoid any repercussions at all. And seeing as this tactic worked out for the guy in at least several instances, the ex-president has naturally decided to apply it to his criminal cases. (Please note: Should you find yourself in similar circumstances, this move is only an option for people with near-endless cash reserves. Sorry if that’s not you!)

For example, just this week alone, Trump has attempted to force the judge in his federal election case to step down and basically have the entire Fulton County case against him thrown out. In the case of the latter, that involved a one-page motion from Trump’s attorney that adopts the arguments of one of his co-defendants, Ray Smith III, who has claimed that last month’s indictment from district attorney Fani Willis is legally flimsy and that its “defects” are “voluminous.” Among other things, Smith has argued that the RICO charge is an attempt to “punish protected First Amendment activity” and does not “sufficiently allege the existence” of a racketeering enterprise whose objective was to overturn Trump’s election loss in Georgia. To bolster his claim, Smith also included this incredible self-own, per The New York Times:

The Smith filing argues that the racketeering conspiracy laid out by the prosecution was actually “comprised of millions of people throughout the country” who believed election fraud had taken place and were working toward the same goal as the defendants. To illustrate the point, the motion stated that there were probably thousands of bank robbers in the United States, “but the mere fact that they all rob banks and have the same goal and many of the same methods of operation, does not mean that all American bank robbers constitute one RICO enterprise, despite the fact that they are people who commit the same crime, for the same reason.”

A former Atlanta-area prosecutor told the Times Monday that the motion was likely to fail in court, though that’s sort of beside the point. Trump is also expected to try to get the Fulton County case moved to federal court, where he might face a more sympathetic jury (and could attempt to pardon himself if reelected), though that too is unlikely to succeed (on Friday, a judge rejected such a request by former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows).

Meanwhile, on Monday afternoon Trump’s lawyers said US district judge Tanya Chutkan, who is presiding over his DOJ election case, should remove herself from the proceedings because she has commented on Trump’s responsibility for January 6 in the past. Of course, Chutkan wasn’t just randomly chatting to pals or, like, on social media about Trump’s role in the insurrection; she was directly responding to arguments made by defendants in her courtroom that they should receive shorter sentences because, in their opinions, the ex-president was responsible for them going to the Capitol in 2021.

Nevertheless, in their filing, per Politico, Trump’s attorneys claimed that “public statements of this sort create a perception of prejudgment incompatible with our justice system. In a case this widely watched, of such monumental significance, the public must have the utmost confidence that the Court will administer justice neutrally and dispassionately. Judge Chutkan’s pre-case statements undermine that confidence and, therefore, require disqualification.” As Politico notes, while Supreme Court precedent dictates that judges must recuse themselves when their “impartiality [can] be reasonably questioned,” precedent also suggests they can remain on cases where, per the outlet, “their opinions or analyses came from official proceedings in prior cases they handled.” In other words, Chutkan probably does not need to and will not recuse herself, though as in the case of the Georgia motion, that wasn’t really the point here.*

*While gumming up the works was clearly the overarching motivation, it should also be noted that Trump has spent weeks attacking Chutkan by claiming she’s biased; so Monday’s motion was probably also an attempt to undermine her in an official sense.