Trump's Trials - An indefinite delay in Florida, an appeal granted in Georgia

Episode Date: May 8, 2024

For this episode of Trump's Trials, host Scott Detrow speaks with NPR Justice Correspondent Carrie Johnson. In Florida, Judge Aileen Cannon delayed a trial over Trump's alleged mishandling of classified documents indefinitely, citing the backlog of pre-trial motions that must be handled before a trial date can even be set. This all but ensures that the trial will not happen before the November election.In Georgia, an appeals court has agreed to hear Trump's challenge to the decision that allowed Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to remain on the state's election interference case. Willis was previously accused of having a conflict of interest because of a relationship she had with a prosecutor she hired. After holding a lengthy hearing earlier this year, Judge Scott McAfee ruled Willis could stay on the case but noted there was an "appearance of impropriety." Topics include:- Documents case delayed - Georgia election interference appeal Follow the show on Apple Podcasts or Spotify for new episodes each Saturday.Sign up for sponsor-free episodes and support NPR's political journalism at plus.npr.org/trumpstrials.Email the show at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

It's Trump's Trials from NPR, I'm Scott Detro. The odds are growing increasingly likely that former President Donald Trump's New York hush money trial underway right now will be the only one of Trump's criminal trials to take place before this fall's election. While the focus was on New York and Stormy Daniels graphic testimony this week, the federal judge presiding over Trump's classified documents case in Florida

issued a major ruling. Judge Eileen Cannon indefinitely delayed the trial, which centers on the 40 criminal counts for allegedly mishandling classified documents and resisting the federal government's attempts to reclaim them. And then in Georgia, an appeals court agreed to take up a Trump appeal challenging a judge's decision allowing Fulton County District Attorney Fonny Willis to stay on the criminal case

that he is facing there. And of course, the US Supreme Court is weighing a major ruling that seems likely to delay the federal trial Trump is facing in Washington, D.C. After the break, we will talk about all of it with NPR justice correspondent, Kerry Johnson. Stick around. We're back and I'm joined by NPR justice correspondent, Kerry Johnson. Hey Kerry. Hey Kerry. Hey Scott.

So we'll get to Florida in a moment, but let's start with today's news from Georgia. Again, Trump and others are facing charges there tied to their alleged conspiracy to overthrow the 2020 election. And remember that the district attorney, Fonny Willis, was allowed to stay on the case despite revelations that she had a relationship with the outside counsel leading it. Now an appeals court is taking up that decision. Carrie, what does this mean for Willis and for the Georgia case as a whole,

which Willis had hoped would go to trial in August? Well, this appeals court is gonna be the decider on whether or not the district attorney can stay on the case. But in the short term, this is a legal victory, another legal victory for Donald Trump in his quest to delay all of the proceedings against him. The idea that the appeals court in Georgia has agreed to hear whether Willis should stay

on the case and whether there was something more than an appearance of impropriety about the personal relationship she had with special prosecutor Nathan Wade is a significant one. It could take months to unfold, leaving the idea of a trial in Fulton County, Georgia this year for the former president. More and more unlikely. Remember, this is a sweeping, racketeering case against Trump and many other defendants. Trump has pleaded not guilty. His attorney in Georgia has said the appeals court decision to hear the matter is a good one. He's looking forward to the arguments in the case.

They want to disqualify this district attorney and they call it an unjust and unwarranted prosecution. And this is significant because remember the lower court judge, Scott McAfee, basically said that Trump and the other defendants had failed to meet their burden to disqualify the prosecutor but he said there was a significant appearance of impropriety and an odor of mendacity about the testimony from Willis and Nathan Wade so there's a lot more to dig into here for the appeals court. Let's go south to Florida now and talk about the federal case there which is

officially in an indefinite delay. But Carrie, given how slowly everything has moved in this case since the beginning, does this news surprise you? No surprise at all. I thought it was always going to be difficult to get a trial in this case in Florida this year in part because of the way Judge Eileen Cannon, who was appointed to the bench by former President Trump, has been handling it. Judge Cannon has kept this May 20th trial date on the schedule, even though she's failed to decide a number of critical issues in this case, including Trump's

desire to find out more about what the intelligence community knew about him and whether it cooperated with prosecutors. In this case, the special counsel Jack Smith declined comment on the idea that the trial is now postponed indefinitely but we know from some of his filings in court that he's disagreed with the way this judge has handled matters and how slowly she has moved on them. And I want to come back to that in a moment but you know let's talk a little bit more about Judge Cannon because on one hand this is a case involving classified documents. These types of cases really do take a long time on the front end because a lot of the key decisions have to do with how to handle those documents, what to admit, what to not admit.

But when Judge Cannon is writing about trying to get through a backlog of pretrial motions, is it fair to say that a lot of that backlog judge. She hasn't had a lot of experience with criminal matters, let alone criminal matters involving classified information and the former president. But that being said, Scott, she's had a number of these issues teed up as of months ago, as of February and March, and she hasn't decided them. She's just put things off and put things off. And now in pulling the trial date all together, she set a number of hearings for later this summer on some of the motions that were fully briefed back in February.

So some of her decision making here is slow, to put it kindly. Now, some people in the legal world and outside the legal world fear that she may be biased in favor of Donald Trump and making decisions on that basis, but there's no evidence in the public record to support that. And it's worth pointing out, I think as Trump has attacked judge after judge, prosecutor after prosecutor in all these cases, he's really praised Cannon,

who's somebody that he appointed to the federal bench. That's exactly right. She has escaped a lot of the criticism that the other judges and prosecutors involved in proceedings against Donald Trump have faced kind of a nonstop barrage. And of course, there are gag orders against the former president on a couple of these cases because of his statements about participants in the case and potential jurors. You mentioned special counsel Jack Smith before and the tenor of some of his filings really criticizing Cannon's approach to all of this. There had been chatter about whether Smith would appeal to the 11th Circuit over some of the moves Cannon has made. Is there anything that Smith can do in this moment

here to try and fight this delay? You know, Scott, what I have been hearing is that the Justice Department was taking a cautious and careful approach to this. They might have earlier sought to bounce Judge Cannon from this case, but they haven't taken that step and they basically were waiting for her to decide some critical issues before they figured out whether they did want to seek an appeal, but she hasn't decided many of those critical issues. And so in kind of a canny way, she's tied the government's hands even if they did want to take additional steps against her. At this point, there's no sign the Justice Department is going to try to go over her head at this point though.

All right, so that's Georgia, that's Florida, the New York hush money case is of course underway with pretty dramatic testimony this week. Let's talk about the one other criminal case that Trump is facing here, and that is the federal case centering around January 6th and Trump's attempts to overturn the election, which is of course in front of the US Supreme Court right now, which seems to be seriously weighing

at least some of Trump's arguments about presidential immunity. Remind us how that decision which we are waiting on could affect the timing of this trial. You know, this trial in DC, which was supposed to start in March, is indefinitely postponed to while we await word from the Supreme Court. One of the key questions we're looking for here This trial in DC, which was supposed to start in March, is indefinitely postponed too, while we await word from the Supreme Court. One of the key questions we're looking for here is whether the conservative majority on this court is gonna wanna write, as Justice Neil Gorsuch said,

an opinion for the ages, an opinion that covers not just the facts of this particular case against the former president of the United States for his actions on and around January 6, 2021, but whether the court is going to want to draw some pretty bright lines with respect to the conduct of future presidents and when they should be insulated from criminal liability or not. And there were at least some signs that Justice Amy Coney Barrett, another Trump appointee,

might want to craft a more discreet ruling, craft something that would allow this case to move forward this year. But right now, you know, we're in the summer, almost in the summer, and there's a really, really slim chance at this point that that case gets to trial, even starts trial before the election. Of course, that matters because if Donald Trump wins the White House, he would have the power when he takes office to try to order Justice Department officials to drop these two federal cases. Cary, all of this is really tough sledding for a podcast called Trump's Trials, huh? There's one trial going on and everything else is mired in pretrial procedure, which

to be honest with you, Scott, is the way most reporters who cover court spend most of their time. Well, it's been a learning curve for me in this world. But Carrie, thank you so much. And with that other trial, the New York case, stick with this feed for updates from the courtroom throughout the week. And on Saturday, we'll give you the big picture context of what happened and what matters.