His team expected to hear charges, enter a plea during the initial appearance. The former president is calling for the case to be moved out of washington. He claims it is impossible to get a fair trial in d. C. Fox Team Coverage with Alexis Mcadams on trumps legal strategy. First, go to Griff Jenkins outside the Federal District court In Washington. Griff, what are you expecting out of todays proceedings . Here we go, jillian, mike. We expect things to get more interesting here. We expect the former president to make his way to District Court here in d. C. Once he gets here at 4 00 p. M. To go inside for that, lets talk a little about whats going to happen. He is going to go before a Magistrate Judge, not the judge that will preside over his trial, a Magistrate Judge for the initial appearance and fox news confirms, being told by the court, this will be an arraignment. We expect the former president to plead not guilty to the four charges, but already as you mention in that intro, he i
primary state. what about that argument and when do you expect that to play out? well, jack smith is asking for a speedy trial in both cases, that s usually something the defense wants, a constitutional right that belongs to the defendant. almost all criminal cases, defendants waive speedy trial requirement because they need time to prepare. it s going to be very challenging to get this done by the election. you have a may date in florida. they just filed a superseding indictment in that case, and the trump team can go back and say look, you can t file essentially a superseding, new indictment with a new party, new counts, and then stick with the original date. so even that date might not be met before the election. there is one interesting thing here, however. as defense counsel, i would be tempted to give smith part of what he s asking for. he wants to move quickly
speak, and clarify specifically whether it means charging him with preventing americans from casting votes in the 2020 election or whether it has to do with him attempting to prevent americans from having votes counted. i think this is the count, jillian, that has the most legal problems for smith. the civil rights statute he is relying on is a post civil war statute that was really designed to go after klu klux klan violence against black americans for exercising their right to vote in the south during the reconstruction period and right after the civil war. it is mainly, when you read it, it talks about intimidating, harming, injuring people and their right to vote. it really was directed at forceable activity. in the 20th century, in the more free wheeling days of the supreme court around the watergate era,
charges, but already as you mention in that intro, he is worried about getting a fair trial. here s what he wrote last night on truth social. quote. the latest fake case brought by crooked joe biden and deranged jack smith will hopefully be moved to an impartial venue such as the nearby state of west virginia. impossible to get a fair trial in washington, d.c. now, let s look at the four felonies that mr. trump is facing here, three of them are on conspiracy, one on obstruction. a key person in this case and political rival now of trump for the gop nomination, former vice president pence who is blasting his former boss and the lawyers who pressured him to not certify the election results. listen here. it wasn t just they asked for a pause, the president specifically asked me and his gaggle of crack pot lawyers asked me to literally reject votes
argument in washington that he has a constitutional right to mount an effective defense and to prepare for trial and that the prosecutor is tactically trying to make that difficult for him by indicting him in another place. so it s very hard i think for smith to come in having set the table that trump now is facing this very complicated trial in may in florida and now push for a speedy trial in washington. i mean, when is this guy supposed to get prepared for trial? the 45 page indictment, andy, that was unsealed tuesday contained the four felony charges. i want to ask you about the fourth. conspiracy against rights. a lot of experts and not experts weighing in about what exactly that felony charge is in regular folks