'Curtains for MAGA crowd': Analyst warns timing of immunity hearing 'nightmare' for Trump
The Supreme Court's plan to hear Donald Trump's presidential immunity case in April could actually set the GOP's leading candidate up for a scheduling disaster as he near the November election, a columnist warned Tuesday.
Former conservative Jennifer Rubin, in her Washington Post column, speculated that the Supreme Court might actually be handing Trump the worst possible trial date for his Washington, D.C. election interference case.
While the legal eagles of cable news and social media have focused on whether the calendar is effectively killing the chance of a classified documents trial before November, Rubin thinks the judge in D.C., Tanya Chutkan, is going to force the 2020 election interference case through before the 2024 presidential vote.
Preparations for Chutkan's trial have been on hold until the immunity question is decided.
"With a May ruling [on immunity], Judge Tanya S. Chutkan could stick to her schedule (i.e., each day lost since the December stay gets added back to the schedule, and the trial could start on Aug. 2," wrote Rubin.
It would mean Trump spends his last few months of the campaign sitting in a courtroom that won't be televised and may even be subject to a gag order.
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"During the fall, daily testimony concerning his 2020-2021 coup attempt would be front and center," she wrote.
Citing legal experts, Rubin estimated, “If the trial starts on Aug. 2 and lasts eight weeks it will be submitted to the jury on Sept. 27; and if the trial lasts 12 weeks, it will be submitted to the jury on Oct. 25.”
While it's shortly before Election Day, those dates will overlap with the start of early voting and voting by mail.
"That schedule is Trump’s worst nightmare," said Rubin. She recalled the 2016 election when then FBI Director James Comey claimed to have new documents that would hurt Hillary Clinton over the email server — blamed by many as contributing to her loss.
Rubin wrote, citing FiveThirtyEight statistics. "Here, an October guilty verdict — even if appealed — would be curtains for the MAGA crowd."