Trump prepares for arraignment in case that will test U.S. democracy
Trump's lawyer has objected to new charges, saying he was exercising free speech and following advice
Donald Trump prepares to formally respond to criminal charges for a third time in under four months on Thursday, but this time where he once held the seat of power, and where he hopes to again in 2025.
Trump, again a Republican candidate for the presidency, is scheduled to be arraigned at the Elijah Barrett Prettyman Federal Courthouse in Washington, D.C., at 4 p.m. ET in connection with charges related to to his efforts to undo the 2020 election. Trump supporters rioted at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, the same day formal certification of his defeat was taking place in Congress.
- This week on Cross Country Checkup, our Ask Me Anything focuses on the criminal charges against former U.S. president Donald Trump related to his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss. What questions do you have? Fill out the details on this form to get your questions in early.
An indictment Tuesday from Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith charges Trump with four felony counts, including conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding. The charges could lead to a years-long prison sentence in the event of a conviction.
The 45-page indictment lays out a pressure campaign directed at vice-president Mike Pence, who was presiding over the congressional certification, as well as a scheme to install Trump-friendly alternate electors in swing states.
"Sadly the president was surrounded by a bunch of crackpot lawyers, who kept telling him what his itching ears wanted to hear," Pence said on a campaign stop on Wednesday.
Watergate prosecutor points to damaging statement
Potential Trump defences include that he was exercising free speech, that he was merely following the advice of counsel and that he truly believed his fraud claims against all evidence.
"You can't commit fraud if you believe what you're doing is correct," former U.S. federal prosecutor Joseph Moreno told CBC News Network on Wednesday.
Moreno said prosecutors will face a significant challenge proving any counts beyond a reasonable doubt, given the situation is so unprecedented. For example, fraud charges, he said, are typically employed in cases involving alleged financial crimes.
John Lauro, a lawyer for Trump, has said in media appearances this week that the 45th president was following the advice of respected constitutional scholars like John Eastman, but former White House attorney Ty Cobb said he was highly skeptical of that potential strategy, in an interview with CBC Radio.
"In my experience at the White House, Trump doesn't listen, he doesn't take advice," said Cobb, who served in the White House from 2017 to 2018. "I think the theory that he was relying on lawyers will be quickly debunked."
While Trump in campaign appearances to this day remains committed to the idea that the 2020 election was stolen, Cobb said presenting evidence on the former president's state of mind presents one significant challenge.
"Who's going to testify about that? Mr. Trump's not going to testify and nobody else is competent to testify about his state of mind, so I don't see that occupying a great deal of the trial either."
Per the indictment, Trump is alleged to have told Pence that he was "too honest" for rejecting Trump's false claims that the vice-president had the power to overturn the vote.
"That particular sentence is extremely damaging because it shows that he knew that what he was asking was improper, illegal and wrong and that only an honest man would tell him that," Jill Wine-Banks, former Watergate special prosecutor, told CBC News on Wednesday.
All eyes on the trial schedule
William Barr, the former attorney general who defended Trump amid investigations over Russia connections and during an Ukraine-related impeachment, told CNN on Wednesday that the former president often shopped for advice from counsel that resonated with him. He said he doubted Trump truly believed many of his electoral fraud claims.
"At first I wasn't sure, but I have come to believe he knew well he lost the election," Barr said, pointing out that comments by Trump surrogates like Steve Bannon and Roger Stone ahead of the 2020 vote point to a potential premeditated strategy of claiming fraud.
Barr did allow that the current case, based on the indictments, will be more challenging for prosecutors than one Trump faces in Florida over unlawfully retaining documents, several of them top secret. There, the government appears to have amassed a months-long paper trail, video evidence and testimony from Trump employees and lawyers.
All told, Trump faces 78 charges in his various legal challenges, but the scheduling of the trial in the fresh indictment will not determined on Thursday.
Smith said in brief remarks Tuesday that the government would seek a "speedy trial" but its scheduling will be closely watched amid a 2024 primary campaign. Trump is scheduled to go to trial in the New York hush money case on March 25, 2024, and in the documents case on May 20, 2024.
Alvin Bragg, Manhattan district attorney overseeing the New York matter, seemed to signal an openness last week to rescheduling.
"We have a firm trial date, our judge has been clear about that. But based upon experience — I've been a federal prosecutor, a state prosecutor and now obviously local — in matters like this, judges will confer," Bragg told WNYC Radio.
Any Trump conviction would lead to appeals, Cobb said, potentially all the way up to the conservative-dominated Supreme Court, so the former president will likely remain free for some time and U.S. politics will be consumed by his legal issues, with Republican allies claiming he's being unfairly targeted.
Some Republican presidential candidates have hinted at pardoning Trump on any federal charges or convictions, but that couldn't apply to state charges he faces in New York, or in a potential case developing in Georgia.
(PDF KB)
(Text KB)CBC is not responsible for 3rd party content
Most constitutional experts, in a question that emerged during Richard Nixon's Watergate scandal, doubt that a president could pardon himself for crimes. But some disagree, Cobb told CBC News, and any bid by Trump to do so would likely reach the Supreme Court.
The arraignment on Thursday will be handled before U.S. Magistrate Judge Moxila Upadhyaya. But going forward, the case will be presided over by U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan.
With files from the Associated Press