Trump ‘grasping at straws’ to delay election fraud trial, special counsel says
Federal prosecutors say the former president is desperate to delay his criminal trials in Florida and D.C. “at any cost.”
WASHINGTON — Federal prosecutors say former President Donald Trump is “grasping at straws” as he seeks to delay his criminal trial in D.C.
Special counsel Jack Smith’s office filed an opposition late Friday night to two motions from Trump’s lawyers. One seeks to push back deadlines several months to nearly the start of his March 4 trial date. The other asks U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan to put the entire case on hold while she rules on his pending motion arguing he has presidential immunity from prosecution.
Trump attorneys John Lauro and Todd Blanche have repeatedly argued they will be unable to review the massive trove of discovery the government has turned over in the case in time to prepare for trial. In August, they sought unsuccessfully to have Chutkan extend the case through 2026. Chutkan did grant a previous motion to extend filing deadlines in the case, but on Wednesday Lauro and Blanche asked for an additional three-month extension for filing subpoenas. The motion also takes issue with the way prosecutors have turned over email records as part of approximately 13 million documents produced to the defense so far.
On Friday, special assistant counsels Thomas Windom and Molly Gaston asked Chutkan to reject Trump’s request for an extension – saying it was based on the same “robotic incantation” about the size of discovery she has previously rejected.
“The defendant’s misleading criticism of the way the Government produced emails exposes that he is grasping at straws for an excuse to delay these proceedings,” Windom and Gaston wrote.
The filing was the second time this week the special counsel’s office has accused Trump of seeking to delay his federal criminal cases. In a separate filing Thursday, prosecutors argued Trump was attempting to mislead U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who is presiding over the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case, by asking her to adjourn the trial because of his D.C. case without informing her he would be asking Chutkan for a stay.
“Defendant Trump’s actions in the hours following the hearing in this case illustrate the point and confirm his overriding interest in delaying both trials at any cost,” the special counsel’s office wrote.
The filings from both sides come as Trump and his children have been in a Manhattan court room this week for a trial seeking to determine whether the former president and his company committed fraud by exaggerating his wealth in financial statements. Trump himself was expected to take the stand Monday to testify.
Also this week, the D.C. Circuit said it would review the partial gag order Chutkan imposed preventing Trump from attacking prosecutors, court staff or witnesses in his case. Chutkan briefly stayed that order, but re-imposed it Sunday evening.
Jury selection in Trump’s election fraud case in D.C. was set to begin March 4. His classified documents trial in Florida was scheduled to begin May 20, although Cannon indicated this week she was considering pushing that date back to accommodate the expected length of the trial in Chutkan’s courtroom.
