Special Counsel Jack Smith asks judge to delay start of Trump trial by 4 months

NY Post ^ | 23 June 2023 | Victor Nava

[NautiNurse]

Special Counsel Jack Smith on Friday asked a federal judge to push back the start of former President Donald Trump’s trial on charges that he willfully retained national security secrets and obstructed justice.

In a court filing, Smith requested US District Judge Aileen Cannon to delay the trial by nearly four months — from Aug. 14 to Dec. 11 — arguing that both the prosecution and the defense need more time to prepare.

The special counsel noted that the 77-year-old president’s defense team does not object to moving the date.

Smith argued that the Aug. 14 date “would deny counsel for the defendant or the attorney for the Government the reasonable time necessary for effective preparation.”

[Snip]

Smith also asked Cannon on Friday to prohibit Trump and his co-defendant Walt Nauta from discussing the trial with a list of witnesses in the government’s case against them.

[Snip]

[NautiNurse]

I don’t know anything about Roland Freisler, but I do know that Jack Smith botched the slimy John Edwards illegal campaign fund diversion case.

[Brian Griffin]

“a President retains the ultimate say as to whether or not to grant an individual’s security clearance”

https://securityclearancelawyer.com/2020/11/25/the-security-clearance-process-for-white-house-appointees/

[ncalburt]

There is no conspiracy .
Have you ever gotten a security clearance?
There are different levels of security clearance.
Its takes usually 3 to 4 months but could take up to a 9 months depending.
Judge Cannon ordered the lawyers to have top security clearance.
Apparently , these classified files stored at the FL resort were serious files .
Trump could not find top lawyers with classified security clearance .

[Brian Griffin]

“President Trump attached his version of a signing statement in objecting to a provision in the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2017, P.L. 115-31 (2017), that requires 30 days’ advance congressional notification prior to establishing a new “Special Access Program.” In his statement, President Trump wrote:

The President’s authority to classify and control access to information bearing on the national security flows from the Constitution and does not depend upon a legislative grant of authority. Although I expect to be able to provide the advance notice contemplated by § 8009 [i.e., the Special Access Program provision] in most situations as a matter of comity, situations may arise in which I must act promptly while protecting certain extraordinarily sensitive national security information. In these situations, I will treat these sections in a manner consistent with my constitutional authorities, including as Commander in Chief.”

“It is a far different matter to suggest that Congress has the authority to dictate standards and/or procedures for adjudicating the issuance of security clearances that will control access to classified information by those who serve as the president’s closest advisors in the Executive Office of the President. Such an effort is not only politically inconceivable in the current Congress where the chambers are controlled by different parties, but it also would almost inevitably trigger a constitutional confrontation where, as the law currently stands, the president is holding the best cards.”

https://www.fpri.org/article/2019/04/who-gets-access-the-flap-over-white-house-security-clearances/

[HandBasketHell]

Four month delay requested by the special prosecutor. Smith tries to appear magnanimous, helping the defense by asking for extra time to prepare. Sounds shaky.

It's obvious that they want a 4 month delay so the trial can be concluded just before the 2024 primaries begin. With a Trump conviction, the Dems will say he cannot run for president, and the appeals process won't be played out until after the election.

[NautiNurse]

Its takes usually 3 to 4 months but could take up to a 9 months depending.

The judge ordered:

1. Security clearance at the request of the prosecution, and

2. Trial date August 14, 2023.

To repeat, the government has unlimited resources to complete security clearances as quickly as they desire.

[silent majority rising]

Even Stalin’s Lavrentiy Beria needed a little time to ‘fit the crime to the man’.

[ncalburt]

You dont have a clue about security clearance process .
Security clearance take time and are done by federal employees.

[Brian Griffin]

“The Washington Times reported that more than 500 of the 1,000 background checks of Clinton personnel ‘would have prevented the people [involved] from obtaining security clearances at the FBI, Defense Department or CIA.’

Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats testified on Tuesday that government-wide there is a backlog of 700,000 security clearance approvals.”

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/feb/14/bill-clinton-white-house-had-security-clearance-ba/

The background criterion for security clearances are specified here:
https://sgp.fas.org/othergov/intel/sead-4.pdf

[TheCipher]

Smith also asked Cannon on Friday to prohibit Trump and his co-defendant Walt Nauta from discussing the trial with a list of witnesses in the government’s case against them.

Notice it is a list of witnesses. It doesn't mean they intend to call them. They will just put every ndme of people hhe Trump has contact with on the lush to prevent him from speaking to them about the case.

[Fido969]

It means if Wagner is successful, none of this will matter. That coup is the biggest thing affecting things right now.

[NautiNurse]

there is a backlog of 700,000 security clearance approvals.

The bloated federal government has problems.

[NautiNurse]

You dont have a clue about security clearance process . Security clearance take time and are done by federal employees.

Brilliant comment. Except that portions of the security clearance process are outsourced to private firms.

the NBIB conducts some of the investigative work itself and
contracts the rest out to private firms.--Congressional Research Service

[ConservativeInPA]

Why not September 2024? The entire trial needs to be televised then.

[Bratch]

Jack Smith Reverses Course, Asks Florida Judge to Delay Trial Against President Trump

June 24, 2023 | Sundance | 102 Comments

If you accept a very specific outlook into the mindset of the Lawfare operatives (Weissmann, Eisen, Berke, McCord et al) as strategic thinkers -the brain trust- behind the Special Counsel Jack Smith prosecution, then you might see the dynamic in this story.

Previously, amid his grand prose and proclamations outlining his spectacular and magnificent legal constructs, wunderkind Jack Smith was so confident in his case he strategically announced he would demand a “speedy trial” in order to preserve the great American democracy.

If you see Lawfare as a narrative construct, the pontification made sense.

However, less than two weeks later, suddenly the ever-confident Jack Smith is reversing his position and asking Florida Judge Cannon to delay the trial.

(Via NBC) – Special counsel Jack Smith has asked the judge overseeing former President Donald Trump’s classified documents case to delay the start of his criminal trial until December.

The request came in a series of new motions filed late Friday by the special counsel.

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon had set a tentative date of Aug. 14 for the start of the trial. (more)

Remember, Lawfare is first and foremost a narrative construct intended for public media consumption.  Lawfare originates from the perspective of an established legal goal, and then all of the activity is structured around supporting that goal.  [A version of find me the man I’ll find you the crime.]

Lawfare is the opposite of following evidence.  In fact, in its purest and most visible form, political Lawfare actually requires the ignoring of evidence.

♦ Why the delay?

I think the prosecutors got tripped up by their first motion.

Knowing how Weissmann, Berke, Eisen and McCord think, which is likely similar to how the lesser strategic Jack Smith thinks, the prosecution brain trust likely anticipated a counter motion to their first submission to the court restricting Trump’s access to the evidence being used against him.

The originating defense counter motion, if it had been filed based on substantive grounding around presidential power and ownership of the documents now cited as evidence, legally there would have been a very large constitutional argument sucking up months of court and litigation time.

I think the prosecution team was caught off guard when Trump’s lawyers just simply agreed to the terms and conditions.  That has thrown the prosecution strategy into a timeline crunch they didn’t expect.

The DOJ crew were likely prepared to litigate a VERY big hurdle, and whether by accident or defense strategy when Trump’s lawyers acquiesced, they mooted the anticipated prosecutorial hurdle Smith was expecting.

While I don’t personally agree with that Trump defense team approach (if intended), the outcome of their agreement puts the more substantive pre-trial motions on a fast track to the judge.

Regardless of Trump’s defense team intent or strategy, apparently Jack Smith was caught off guard.

Jack Smith wouldn’t ask for a delay, essentially like putting egg on his own face given his prior statements, if he didn’t need the delay.  Smith needs the delay.

[NautiNurse]

Excellent info—thank you!

[Georgia Girl 2]

Yeh, he’s such a good guy. HA! He has no case!

[Brian Griffin]

January 6th Defendants with Connections to Extremist Groups/Movements

https://www.start.umd.edu/january-6th-capitol-extremists-network

National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism
University of Maryland, College Park

[Brian Griffin]

“Big Allied and Dangerous (BAAD) Database 1 - Lethality Data, 1998-2005”

“BAAD seeks to create a comprehensive database of terrorist organizations. The database contains information on organizational level variables such as ideology, location, size, structure, and funding as well as network data on variables such as allies, rivals, targets, and state sponsors. The data were retrieved from MIPT’s Terrorism Knowledge Base, Correlates of War (COW), Polity, and Polity2. (2011)”

https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataset.xhtml?persistentId=hdl%3A1902.1/16062

[Brian Griffin]

Jack Smith would like to pretend that the techniques of identifying terrorists are secrets.

Most of the same techniques are used domestically.

“The Terrorism and Extremist Violence in the United States (TEVUS) Database”

“The American Terrorism Study (ATS) is led by researchers at the Terrorism Research Center at the University of Arkansas. The ATS is an empirical relational database consisting of data on federal terrorism-related court cases, persons indicted in these court cases, and related officially designated terrorism incidents. Included in the TEVUS portal are data from court case, person, organization, affiliation, incident, and precursor activity (antecedent) tables in the ATS.”

“The U.S. Extremist Crime Database (ECDB) is led by researchers at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, Michigan State University, Seattle University and Indiana University – Purdue University, Indianapolis. The ECDB is a relational database that includes information on all publicly known violent and financial crimes committed in the United States by extremists associated with al-Qa’ida and its associated movement (AQAM) - which for the purpose of this dataset also include crimes committed by extremists associated with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the violent Far Right (FR), and the Animal and Earth Liberation Fronts (ELF and ALF). The ECDB includes information on the incidents themselves, as well as their perpetrators, related organizations, and victims. It currently covers the period between 1990 and 2018.”

“Profiles of Perpetrators of Terrorism in the United States (PPT-US) is led by START researchers at the University of Maryland. PPT-US is a group-level dataset, including information on the background, ideology, structure, goals, and activities of groups and organizations identified as perpetrators of attacks in the Global Terrorism Database (GTD). Only GTD perpetrator groups for which there is high confidence of responsibility for at least one violent attack are included in PPT-US. There are over 140 groups included in the dataset that carried out terrorist attacks in the US between 1970 and 2018.”

“...analyzed data from the U.S. Extremist Crime Database from 1995 to 2010. During this time, 239 arson and bombing attacks were committed by ELF and ALF, with just over half attributed to ELF. Some offenders had ties to only ALF or ELF, but most were connected to both groups. One or more arrest was made in only about a third of all incidents. Many of these perpetrators were convicted of multiple crimes, and only 39% of incidents were not related to other incidents, demonstrating that a relatively small group of individuals can be responsible for a large number of offenses.”

“Characteristics of American Communities Where Terrorists Lived, Planned, and Conducted Their Attack....census tracts in which perpetrators lived or conducted pre-incident activities were generally characterized by lower socioeconomic status, poorer housing conditions, and sociodemographic characteristics that were significantly different than tracts without residential or pre-incident activity.”

“This subproject specifically focused on Financial Crime and Material Support Schemes committed or attempted by supporters of al-Qa’ida and affiliated movements (AQAM) 1990 to June 2014 and Far Right Extremists 1990 to 2013 in the United States. The project identified 609 financial schemes involving at least one far-right extremist occurring in the United States from 1990 to 2013. It was found that AQAM supporters committed 50 financial schemes and 100 material support schemes between 1990 and mid-2014.​​”

“a greater percentage of the residences of al-Qa’ida-related (55%) and far-right (44%) perpetrators were within 30 miles of the incident location compared with far-left (29%) and environmental (25%) perpetrators’ residences. Al-Qa’ida-related perpetrators were also most active prior to an attack, conducting more antecedent acts per incident compared with far-right, far-left, and environmental perpetrators.”

https://www.start.umd.edu/research-projects/terrorism-and-extremist-violence-united-states-tevus-database