person to be charged in connection with the insurrection according to one count is a former president and a current front runner for the nomination of a major political party who is already facing 74 criminal counts. who stands accused of trying to defraud the government that he led at that time. trying to obstruct the proceedings of a branch of government and trying to overturn the will of millions of voters in the swing states that determined the outcome of the electoral college. the big question now that trump has been booked and fingerprinted, what s next in this case? which is really unlike any other in american history. here is what team trump has planned according to the new york times. his lawyers used the arraignment to hint at one of his central defense strategies, a request to delay a second pending federal trial for months if not years. delaying the proceedings as much as possible is widely expected to be part of mr. trump s legal strategy given that he could ef
You know, at some point i suppose he can cling to this idea, well, i still believed it even though everyone was telling me otherwise. there s two problems with that. one is the law doesn t recognize such a defense. like if i pull out a gun and shoot someone and kill them, my defense can t be, well, i didn t think bullets killed people. you know, that just defies any notion of common sense or logic. similarly, you know, given what everyone told trump that s a problem and jack smith even found in the indictment, it s in there, that trump himself thought he lost, that he told the vice president that and he told other officials at the time. that s one problem. the other is just a really practical problem as glenn knows well, which is if we have a client who wants to assert a lack of criminal intent defense, the way to do that is to put that defendant on the stand and say, well, here is what i actually believe. you can t do that with donald trump if you are a criminal defense lawyer because
Harry litman, and former congressman from florida, msnbc contributor, david jolley, it s good to see you all. i want you to break down buy the first amendment defense is wrong here. yes. we, the indictment rightly acknowledges that trump had a first amendment right to talk about, even to like about the election. the constitution does broadly protect and broadly guarantee that the government won t punish us for our political speech, even if it s false, but speeches routinely are used as evidence of other criminality activity that the government can and must punish. so, for example, if you were charged with conspiring to rob a bank, you couldn t invote a first amendment defense on the grounds you were exercising your free speech right to tell the getaway driver to come around back or the teller to stick em
Fair trial, about that i have no doubt, but she will also give both the defendant and the people, the prosecution, a speedy trial. so i don t think donald trump or his attorneys tricks and attempts to delay will work and i think that was proved when the spectre of judge chutkan hung over yesterday s arraignment hearing. i was watching it from the overflow courtroom and toward the end the magistrate judge said, you will both file briefs with your proposed trial date. the defense mightily fought against that but they lost that fight. and then on the 28th of august judge chutkan will set a trial date. i suspect we re going to see a trial date in the near term, whether it s january or february, but i think donald trump and his lawyers have met their match because they have a fair, no-nonsense, determined
Because that s a politically better state for me. again, there s no such defense in the law. that is going nowhere. you don t get to get tried by a jury of people who like you more, you get tried in the place where the crime occurred. here i think the symbolism, returning to your question about the arraignment, the former president of the united states yesterday walking into a courtroom in washington, d.c. on pennsylvania avenue, 16 blocks away from another building on pennsylvania avenue, the white house, where he formerly served as our leader and just a few blocks away from the united states capitol where he fomented, you know, basically an attack on that building, of course the trial has to take place in washington, d.c. there is no other place for it. i mean, glen, understanding that three and a half years west virginia those would be more political arguments than they are legal arguments. i wonder what you make more broadly about the delay tactic and could this potentially del