Donald Trump’s legal team on Tuesday filed to delay his upcoming federal trial, on charges related to his unlawful possession of classified documents, until after the 2024 election. And later in the day, MSNBC’s Chris Hayes discussed the move in detail, ultimately comparing the legal strategy to “a chase movie, where he’s running from the law.”
Hayes’ point is that Trump’s plan is to win the 2024 election, and then kill the trial entirely, escaping any accountability for the crimes he has been charged with. And that makes this trial not just a matter of accountability, Hayes argued, but the literal health of America. “Can we actually hold this man this powerful man accountable, as if he were any other citizen?” he asked.
“Donald Trump is literally running for his freedom. He is running to be president to stay out of prison. Those are the stakes for Donald Trump and he understands them as such,” Hayes said on Tuesday’s episode of “All In.”
“And the key to achieve that end is to delay as much as possible. In fact, his team has already tried that in fighting this investigation,” Hayes continued, before detailing that earlier attempt.
“Remember last summer after the FBI executed that search warrant on Trump’s Florida beach club. One of the first things Trump’s lawyers did in response was to sue to stop the Justice Department from reviewing the documents it had found their own documents government documents, Trump argued the search was politically motivated and asked the judge to appoint a third party to review the C’s materials. In other words, that was his effort to delay the investigation, keep the FBI from looking at the evidence in this cockamamie legal theory,” Hayes said.
“And guess what? It worked for a time. Trump’s motion was granted by the same judge who is now overseeing this criminal trial judge, Aileen Cannon who herself was appointed by none other than Donald Trump, the defendant,” Hayes added.
Hayes worried that Cannon was assigned to the current case, as “back in August she gave him this completely unprecedented break from normal criminal procedure,” in which she appointed a Special Master to review the documents under dispute.
This, Hayes noted, “consequentially delayed the Justice Department’s access to some of that evidence for a few weeks, until an appeals court overturn the decision of candidate in a scathing absolutely eviscerating rule. But here’s the thing: I n this case, especially, every week matters. This guy, this twice-indicted ex-president, he’s gotta get to the election.”
“It’s like a chase movie, where he’s running from the law. Except what’s at stake here is not just Donald Trump’s prison time, but our own constitutional integrity. Can we actually hold this man this powerful man accountable as if he were any other citizens?” Hayes asked.
“And so here we are. We got 16 months on the clock. 16 months away from the 2024 election. Donald Trump has been indicted in this case on 37 felony counts. He lucked out and managed to get this same judge who gave him a break last year,” Hayes said. “And she now has been monumental decision before her.”
“Will she further collude with Donald Trump’s scheme to stay out of prison?” Hates wondered.