A stormy day in multiple courts adds to Trump’s legal disarray

(CNN) — Every day, the United States is drawn deeper into the legal, political, and constitutional grip of Donald Trump.

The difficult situation was exacerbated by a day of raw drama in a handful of cities on Thursday, which in numerous cases involved defiant personalities, often trading personal scandals that tightened the future knot between the 2024 elections and the former president’s spectacular legal battle.

By evening, new truths had emerged about Trump’s struggle for fortune and political career, and the coming months are sure to further distract the nation, especially as millions of his supporters believe his claims of political persecution.

• A New York judge has rejected the latest hurdle to the first criminal trial against the former president. Jury selection in Trump’s hush money trial will begin on March 25. A guilty verdict could mean this year’s presumptive Republican nominee is a convicted felon. But if a jury of his peers finds him not guilty, he could also swing the election.
• The election interference case of a former president in Georgia is on a knife’s edge after a tense day in which two prosecutors effectively tried for a romantic relationship that the defendants say should disqualify them and end the case. Even if they survived, Trump and his co-defendants could have won the day after taking the opportunity to call prosecutors corrupt and unscrupulous.
• Trump’s lawyers made a final appeal to the Supreme Court to stop the clock on his federal trial over his attempt to overturn the 2020 election. Justices must now decide whether to take up the deepest case in the agency’s history.
• A special prosecutor has accused a former whistleblower of lying about the Biden family’s role in Ukraine, undermining potentially important testimony that Republicans have used to justify an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden.
• Trump is bracing for a potentially devastating outcome in a civil fraud trial on Friday. Much of the former president’s fortune is at stake and his ability to do business in the city where he built skyscrapers and is a legend of his business acumen.

The former president pleaded not guilty and denied wrongdoing in all cases. But at the end of a tumultuous day, his legal strategy became clearer than ever. First, try to delay any trial or possible conviction until after the election. Second, allege criminality on the part of those who hold him responsible. Trump’s latest resort is a concerted effort to impeach prosecutors, judges and courts to protect himself against possible guilty verdicts and destroy his credibility among undecided voters.

Passionate and abusive testimony in Georgia

Everything associated with Trump becomes a circus. Thus, given the timing, the confirmation that a former president would face criminal prosecution for the first time was overshadowed.

The interruption was a televised court battle over claims by Trump and co-defendants that Fulton Country, Georgia, District Attorney Fannie Willis and her appointed special prosecutor received financial benefits during the affair.

One of Trump’s co-defendants, Michael Roman, has called for Willis to be fired and the case dismissed, alleging that she and special counsel Nathan Wade, with whom she had a previous relationship, are in a conflict of interest.

The stakes are enormous. If Willis is fired, the case would be sent to a jurisdiction outside of Fulton County, a process that could take months, change the nature of the proceedings and certainly delay it until after the November election. Like the hush money prosecutions in New York, the Georgia case is significant because, as a state matter, it is beyond Trump’s potential ability to stop if he wins the White House. And the pardon powers of the President do not extend to such cases.

“This case never ceases to amaze me,” Daryl Cohen, a former Fulton County assistant district attorney who knew key figures in the case, told CNN’s Erin Burnett.

“I saw Fani enter the courtroom, walking hot. … I thought we were watching a heavyweight fight,” Cohen said. “The bottom line is: Does it matter? Does this take anything away from the facts of the case? My answer is no. “It’s a sideshow or a leg up for the moment.”

In dramatic testimony, Willis denied taking advantage of thousands of dollars in taxpayer funds paid to Wade while the then-couple were on lavish vacations and cruises. She said she reimbursed her travel expenses in cash, saying she learned from her father. This also explains why there was no paper trail of transactions.

The onus is on the defense to prove Willis and Wade wrong. At the end of a day of intense exchanges, it was not clear whether any of the lawyers brought before her had shown any evidence of corruption. Likewise, it would be hard to argue that the details that have come out have hurt the ability of Trump and his co-defendants to get a fair trial in the massive racketeering case.

It omits the ethical conduct of Willis and Wade and the assumption that they faced a conflict of interest.

A legal analyst, defense attorney Carolyn Polici, argued that testimony from Robin Yerty, a former colleague and friend of Willis’s, that the relationship began well before the 2022 date named by both the district attorney and Wade could mean that They misled the court.

“A lawyer who lies in court is no good,” Polisi told CNN’s Anderson Cooper. However, some other observers cautioned that Yerty, as a disgruntled former employee, did not seem like a credible witness.

But even if Willis and Wade are not disqualified, Thursday’s hearing, in which both were forced to answer humiliating questions on television about their sex lives and claims they were guilty of serious misconduct, will serve to tarnish Trump’s reputation and prospects. was completed. Reliability in prospective trials. The hours-long televised trial could also sway prospective jurors, and Yerty’s testimony is likely to fuel days of conservative media stories.

And as Willis notes, it had the effect of diverting attention from Trump and his co-defendants to an alleged attempt to steal the votes of thousands of Georgians.

“You think I’m on trial. “These people are on trial for trying to steal the election in 2020,” Willis said, referring to lawyers for Trump and his co-defendants. “No matter how much they try to put me on trial, I am not given justice.”

This story will be written on March 25

Despite the drama in Georgia, history may best remember the moment Thursday morning when Judge Juan Murchan rejected Trump’s calls for a delay and impeachment, confirming that the country will cross a constitutional and legal turning point on March 25. The date means the hypothetical possibility of a front-runner being tried months before the election will become a stark reality.

The case is considered by many legal experts to be the weakest of the four criminal trials Trump has faced and is based on a somewhat novel legal theory. Even if convicted, Trump will not face jail time. But America’s assessment of its past and possibly future leader will paralyze the world. In itself, that represents a profound political and legal test for American democracy and the rule of law, even if it is one of Trump’s legal threats.

Trump wasted no time in clarifying how he intended to fight the case, leaving the courtroom to escort reporters out into a corral of protective barriers, creating a disturbing metaphorical image of the former president who almost seemed to be behind bars.

Trump accused Biden of “meddling in the election” over the case, calling it “the only way he can think to get elected because he hasn’t done anything.” There is no evidence that the White House intervened in any way in the prosecution of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. Trump’s attorney, Todd Blanch, told Merchan that a trial was improper because the former president needed to campaign before the November election and asked for a delay.

“What is your legal argument?” asked the merchant.

“That’s my legal argument,” Blanche replied, before the judge added, “That’s not a legal argument” as he adjourned the hearing.

By the time March 25 rolls around, Trump will have amassed the majority of delegates needed to win the Republican nomination. If he’s not already a presumptive candidate, it could be a trial that could last a month to six weeks before a verdict is returned.

In the general election, Trump will be poised to take a shot at his potential general election foe, Biden, in late March. But he will be forced to spend day after day in New York courts. When asked how he could preach, he replied: “I will do it at night.”

There’s no way to know how voters will react if the former president is convicted, although some recent polls suggest some Republicans are less likely to support him after a guilty verdict. No one wants to go to trial, but if there’s any case a former president would choose to face before an election, it’s New York. And despite his claims that he would never get a fair trial in Manhattan, a not guilty verdict could send its own shockwaves through voters.

The former president’s political claims that he is the victim of political persecution are likely to be bolstered by news of a major development Thursday that could undermine the GOP’s impeachment goals in the House of Representatives.

Special counsel David Weiss accused an FBI informant of lying about the president and his son Hunter Biden’s involvement in business with Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings.

Alexander Smirnov, 43, was arrested Thursday at Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas after arriving in the United States from abroad. Like any other defendant, Smirnov has the right to be presumed innocent. But because his evidence has been repeatedly cited by House Republican investigators, his arrest has major political implications.