Legal experts warn that the likelihood of Donald Trump facing trial in any of his four criminal cases ahead of the general election is very slim.
The allegation was made by three different attorneys on Sunday, hours before an Atlanta prosecutor’s office is set to release the first details of its wide-ranging anti-extortion case against the former president and 18 other co-defendants, including his former chief of staff.
One of the panelists on the slim chance Trump will stand trial in this case – or indeed in other cases in New York, Florida and Washington, DC – was Harvard Law’s Alan Dershowitz, one of the leading voices on US constitutional law.
In several interviews this week, he said the state and federal officials’ strategy in filing these cases is based on a desire to get a speedy trial that would hurt Trump’s chances — even if the indictment doesn’t stand or through an appeal will be annulled.
Dershowitz’s comments – which included claims that the politician had been deliberately convicted in jurisdictions predominantly against him – were shared by several others, all of whom said Trump was unlikely to be confronted with the music in time.
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Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, one of the leading voices on US constitutional law, said Sunday there was little chance Donald Trump would face trial for any of his four criminal cases before November 2024
Trump made history by becoming the first former president to pose for a mugshot after being arrested for attempting to overturn the 2020 Georgia election results
Dershowitz, Felix Frankfurter Professor Emeritus at Harvard Law School, told The Daily Caller Sunday that federal and state officials involved in the GOP nominee’s trial are “trying to secure a conviction before the election.” .
‘[But] You can’t do it in two weeks,” he added, citing time-consuming court matters like disclosure – where defendants gather evidence from prosecutors to construct a defense – and motions to exclude evidence, as well as jury selection.
“You know it will take longer.”
Jonathan Turley, a public law professor at George Washington University Law School in DC, agreed with Dershowitz’ assessment that the prosecution was a possible ruse, telling the caller, “It seems unlikely that most.” [trials] will continue as planned.’
Turley said, “There are threshold challenges and dispositive motions that need to be addressed.” Some may be appeals.’
He continued, “These data strike prosecutors as extremely optimistic and a little opportunistic.”
Ronald Carlson, law professor at the University of Georgia Law School, shared a similar view, stating simply, “If Trump loses his motions, he will appeal.”
“If he loses in the Court of Appeals,” he continued, “he will seek a Supreme Court hearing.”
Conversely, he added, “If there is a ruling in Trump’s favour, the state will likely appeal.”
Atlanta District Attorney Fani Willis holds a news conference at the Fulton County Government Center after a grand jury voted to indict Trump on Aug. 14. On Monday she will show what evidence she has against the President
The subject of Monday’s hearing is Meadows’ request to have his case taken to federal court and possibly dismissed — which many are doing
Dershowitz’s claim was corroborated by two other senior attorneys hours before officials are due to present their evidence in a case against former president and his former chief of staff Mark Meadows (pictured with Trump in 2020)
The fact that there are four separate criminal cases makes it even more unlikely, Dershowitz said, adding that prosecutors are trying to obtain “convictions.” [of Trump] before the election” – in a so-called “rush on injustice”.
“It’s like asking a brain surgeon to do an operation with three days’ notice,” he said of the likelihood of hitting all four cases in time.
He added that the courts “will likely take at least a year” to resolve all pre-trials and that “jury selection alone in Georgia’s cases will take several months.”
Alluding to the plans for the much-anticipated hearing in Fulton County federal court Monday morning, he added, “If [the courts] “Don’t accept Trump’s team’s discovery timeline, these are issues that could be appealed.”
The 84-year-old New Yorker, meanwhile, told Fox Business in a filmed session that prosecutors obviously knew all this and were merely using the opportunity to influence Trump’s reelection bid — evidenced by the timing of all their filings.
‘Receive [Trump] “The convicts were convicted in jurisdictions that are overwhelmingly anti-Trump,” said the author of the book Get Trump, describing the mindset of prosecutors and federal prosecutors in the opening of the concurrent trials.
“Then you don’t have to worry about the verdict being reversed on appeal as there would be an overturning of the appeal after the election,” he added.
In several interviews this week, he said that state and federal officials’ strategy in filing these cases in predominantly anti-Trump jurisdictions is based on a desire to achieve a speedy trial that would hurt Trump’s chances — even if the indictments didn’t have existence or remain set aside by appeal
Trump — who is miles ahead of his Republican counterparts despite these cases — recently requested that his Washington, DC trial scheduled for this year be postponed to April 2026
The subject of Monday’s hearing in Georgia, meanwhile, will not be about Trump but about his chief of staff when he was accused of breaking the law by pressuring local election officials to meddle in the 2020 election – Mark Meadows .
Meadows, 64, is accused of supporting the then-outgoing president’s alleged plan to stay in office – but he has recently filed a motion to have his case moved to federal court and potentially have it dismissed.
As a result, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis will lay out the first details of her racketeering case against the embattled ex-head of state — laying the groundwork for a sort of mini-trial that likely alludes to Trump’s fate in the case.
The case was the politician’s top legal concern and originally had a tentative hearing date of March 4, 2024, but after one of Trump’s co-defendants, Kenneth Chesebro, asserted his constitutional right to a speedy trial, Willis’ office postponed the trial scheduled to begin months earlier, on October 23, 2023.
Trump opposed that request and filed an opposition motion on Thursday.
Regardless, Willis is expected to preview the case Monday morning and finally show maps showing why she and others believe Trump and his allies broke the law by allegedly pressuring local election officials to rigging the 2020 election.
Meadows and 17 other co-defendants are expected to be present – and attorneys who spoke to the caller said several will follow the former Trump chief of staff’s move to take the case to federal court and extend the trial.
“There will be multiple motions to refer the Georgia case to federal court for defendants like Trump and Meadows,” he said.
Carlson, meanwhile, said the likelihood that even one defendant would file a request for deportation — given Wills has vowed to prosecute everyone at once — suggests the pretrial in this case is “down to one could take a year”.
Those motions provide him “an ample opportunity to delay the process,” Carlson said.
The former president shared the mugshot on X after not posting to the platform since 2021
Meanwhile, Trump has requested his trials in Florida and DC both be postponed to April 2026 after federal prosecutor Jack Smith, who is handling both cases, requested they be held in January.
In New York, where Trump has been charged with 34 counts of allegedly falsifying business records related to his $150,000 payment to Stormy Daniels through Fixer attorney Michael Cohen, his trial is set for March.
In that case, Trump’s attorneys recently argued that presiding judge Juan M. Merchan had a conflict of interest after donating $15 to Biden’s campaign.
Merchan has dismissed her arguments – although local district attorney Alvin Bragg has indicated he would be open to changing the trial date if other prosecutors who filed the case were sympathetic.
In a radio interview last month, the notoriously progressive prosecutor – who was the first to bring a lawsuit against Trump – said he would not “rely on ceremonies” on a trial day.
Of course, if “our trial judge is contacted by another judge, we will look at everything in its entirety,” he said this month.