there isn t anything about the actual insurrection on january 6th, the violence that day. no, it s just about this, a pretty lean case, clearly designed for speed. so using your experience there as a prosecutor, talk to us about what you see as this timeline. we know that the prosecution is supposed to come back next week with some proposals about timing, and then the two sides are going to meet at the end of the month to set a trial schedule. what do you think is going to happen? so i m not going to give a predicted trial date. that would be foolish on my part because, in any case, in any federal indictment, there s so many unknowns. i think it is absolutely correct that the 70-day, you know, speedy trial clock is not a realistic day. it isn t in any federal case. i think people understand that, but i just want to say that out loud. because while the statute and the rules talk about 70 days,
then the defense counsel, i don t know what this means. andrew, tell me, the defense says we are going to file papers to exclude time to next hearing and beyond. what does that mean? there is something called the speedy trial clock. the public has a right to have a trial within 70 days. there are lots of exceptions in reference to an exclusion. it is saying that is a way for donald trump to say don t hold us to that 70 days. give us more time and you exclude the clock of 70 days. remember, the speedy trial clock is the right the public has to a speedy trial. it is not a right that is exclusive to the government or defendant. the defense counsels for the government to suggest this case can be tried in the time frame of the speedy trial act is
and some of the paragraphs that she had a concern with, including the pretrial diversion agreement, and get to a point where they think that will satisfy the judge, and if so, get right back in that courtroom, right back where the sketch was taken yesterday, and try to do this all over again. now, there is, of course, a chance, even though it probably is not very likely, that they don t come to an agreement and then the trial process starts here. and the trial clock begins. so, it will be interesting to see where things go over the coming couple of days and weeks. it could take some time. we have to watch the docket carefully. also try to get a better sense of what s going on with this ongoing investigation. prosecutors had said it before, we have seen no signs of it based on our reporting, but yesterday they were quite concrete that they re continuing to look into some things and i think with the benefit of time and the fact we re able to get a transcript, it is clear that from 2014 t
that was at 11:31. and chris clark who represents hunter biden says as far as i m concerned, the plea agreement is null and void. just as i left the courtroom itself, the judge determined that there should be a ten-minute recess to try and figure out whether or not the two parties can quickly come to an agreement. otherwise, the trial clock is on. as i was leaving the courtroom, she was talking about status conferences, future filings, as if there was no plea agreement at all, the very reason we re here today does not exist. as we re standing here, i m locking at my clock, my watch to make sure they re not back in, as i stand here there is no current plea deal between the justice department and the son of the president. that s where we stand. so, tom, kind of listening in to all of this, so you re talking about something that happened eight minutes ago, the judge did a ten-minute pause there, we re talking about right now this should any minute now be coming back in and discussing
in the courtroom, or, you know, having discussed this. what are the what are the steps, what is the process if there is a break in an agreement? you know, during the actual case? what happens next? i would imagine the prosecution would go back and regroup, but the charges they would bring would likely be more serious than those to which they are allowing a guilty plea, that s how it goes. you get a break when you plead guilty. the stakes could get higher for hunter biden. i would imagine they would want to go back and take some time. i don t think this case is going to go to trial in 70 days because the charges that are on the table at the moment are those charges that were filed in contemplation of a guilty plea. i think the prosecution would go back, reassess, file charges, under the most serious readily provable offense, the ordinary charging position of the government. and then after those charges are filed, the speedy trial clock