While a federal judge on Monday expedited the start of former President Donald J. Trump’s election interference trial in Washington, the expanded prosecution of Mr. Trump and 18 co-defendants by the Fulton County, Georgia, district attorney was expedited on similar grounds. the state charges showed signs of slowing down to a flounder in Atlanta.
The two cases, which stem from efforts by Mr. Trump and his allies to reverse the results of the 2020 election, are based on many of the same facts, documents and witnesses. But as Monday’s courtroom skirmishes have shown, the approaches of the two prosecutors responsible for the investigations — Jack Smith, the Justice Department’s special prosecutor, and Fani T. Willis, the Fulton district attorney County – no more different from each other.
Mr. Smith took over the two federal Trump investigations with a promise to take swift action in hopes of completing the legal process before the 2024 election, and the charges against Mr. Trump on August 1 included only four charges. Although six unindicted co-conspirators were involved, only Mr. Trump was charged.
Ms. Willis’ indictment, on the other hand, includes 41 charges against the former president and included allegations against his long list of co-defendants. The legal and logistical complexities of the Georgia case came into clearer focus Monday, when Mark Meadows, Trump’s last White House chief of staff, took his stand in an attempt to take his case to federal court, underlining how some of the Co-defendants splinter to pursue their own strategies.
“Obviously, Jack Smith and the prosecution made the decision to push this forward,” said Tim Purdon, who served as U.S. Attorney for North Dakota from 2010 to 2015. “Lawyers talk about pleas and cases – is it gunshot or gunshot? Smith is a gunshot, Willis is a shotgun. There are pros and cons to both, but Smith’s strategy is to act quickly.”
The two approaches — one streamlined, built with brevity and speed in mind, the other more comprehensive in seeking accountability but also more complex to attempt — represent the differing experiences, temperaments, and timescales of the two prosecutors.
Mr. Smith operates in a dangerous political environment, determined to continue tearing off the Band-Aid, even if he has failed to top the political calendar, with Mr. Trump’s trial set to begin a day early. the Super Tuesday primaries.
Ms. Willis, who began her investigation in early 2021, wants to move quickly to a lawsuit. But she seems less concerned about the time constraints, well aware that linking Mr. Trump to so many co-defendants could significantly delay the trial.
Mr Smith’s strategy in the Washington case appeared to be paying off at Monday’s hearing to determine the schedule of Mr Trump’s trial on the election interference allegations. The proceedings took place at a federal courthouse that was the venue for the trials of Trump supporters involved in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.
Trump’s lawyers spent much of the 90-minute hearing arguing that the administration’s case was so impossibly complex that they needed a two-year delay to dig through the avalanche of evidence. But Judge Tanya S. Chutkan of the Federal District Court in Washington rejected those claims and set a start date of March 4, 2024 — just two months later than prosecutors had requested.
While she admitted that Trump’s legal team faced the daunting task of sifting through millions of documents, she dismissed the idea that the case was too complex to move forward quickly — in part, she said, because there was only “one defendant.” is.
In addition, Judge Chutkan embraced the Special Prosecutor’s plea for a speedy resolution of the case, saying it served the “public interest” to begin proceedings while the day’s events were still fresh in the minds of witnesses and those were damaged by the attack.
Determining the parameters of any criminal prosecution—determining the number of defendants, charges, witnesses, and evidence—is a threshold choice for any prosecutor in an investigation involving more than one target. The main considerations in the vast majority of cases revolve around everyday details about gathering evidence, cooperating with witnesses, and a defendant’s willingness to participate in plea negotiations.
But complex, high-profile cases introduce factors that make decisions more difficult, and decision makers face tradeoffs, current and former prosecutors say.
Mr. Smith has lost his share of high-stakes cases over the years — which has at least strengthened his determination to pursue challenging cases that other prosecutors might avoid as too difficult, according to people who have worked with them over the years. collaborated with him.
“Smith’s case was made for speed — and he knows it would have been extremely cumbersome to have charged the six co-conspirators in addition to Trump,” said Harry Litman, who served as a U.S. attorney in Western Pennsylvania under President Bill Clinton. served.
“On the other hand, the advantage of Willis’s approach is that it creates a favorable dynamic where you have 18 people pointing their fingers up — and starting to accuse Trump,” he added.
Despite the differing approaches of prosecutors, there is a good chance that some of Ms. Willis’s prosecution will actually take place months before Mr. Smith’s. Several defendants, including Mr. Meadows, have filed for the Georgia case to be moved from state to federal court. Judge Steve C. Jones of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia on Tuesday asked prosecutors and attorneys for additional information on the matter by Thursday.
There is no broad consensus among legal analysts about how the court will rule. But if the case remains in state court, three of the defendants are likely to face trial starting in October.
Kenneth Chesebro, a lawyer who helped develop the so-called bogus voter plan, has already received an early trial, which is his right under Georgia law. Presiding State Judge Scott McAfee has said Mr. Chesebro’s early trial dates would not apply more broadly to the other 18 defendants, but on Tuesday Ms. Willis’ office filed a motion to clarify that ruling in an effort to get all keep statements. the suspects together in one trial on the faster timeline.
Some other suspects are also demanding a faster trial. Sidney Powell, another lawyer who fruitlessly tried to prove Trump’s claims of election fraud, has pursued the same. Harvey Silverglate, an attorney for John Eastman who promoted the idea that Mike Pence, Trump’s vice president, could block congressional certification of Trump’s defeat, has said his client will also push for a speedy trial.
Ms. Willis, a Democrat, is a seasoned prosecutor with years of experience pursuing complex racketeering cases, with a penchant for slow investigations.
Ten years ago, she made her name as a prosecutor by helping lead a high-profile RICO case against a group of educators in the Atlanta public school system involved in a widespread fraud scandal. Her office is currently embroiled in an extensive RICO case involving prominent local rappers accused of running a criminal gang; Jury selection in this case has already lasted more than seven months, even including legal sparring over evidence of a goat sacrifice.
She was elected prosecutor in 2020. One of her first hires as outside counsel was John E. Floyd, who wrote a manual on racketeering laws published by the American Bar Association and is now a member of Trump’s prosecution team.
Ms. Willis’ staff began investigating the Trump case almost immediately after taking office. From the beginning of her investigation into Mr. Trump and his allies, she has raised the possibility of using RICO charges and discussed its benefit in an interview in February 2021, when her investigation got under way.
“I always tell people when they hear the word extortion they think of ‘The Godfather,’” she said at the time, noting that RICO’s indictment could also extend to otherwise lawful organizations used to enforce the law. to violate.
“If you have several overt acts for an illegal purpose, I think you can get there,” she said.
Unsurprisingly, not everyone is a fan of her approach, including Mr. Silverglate, Mr. Eastman’s lawyer.
“She would have been much better off with a very simple case, and not with a phone book charge,” he said in an interview.
“To her, as a self-proclaimed expert on RICO, everything looks like a RICO case, and that’s the problem,” he added. “She could have brought a very simple case and instead brought this monstrosity.”
Mr Smith’s approach was “simpler and easier to understand for a jury, and it takes less time,” he said. “Do you know what it’s like to be a jury member for 18 to 24 months? Do you know how it disrupts their lives? It will not be a representative jury, because then you will not have anyone on the jury who has a job.”
Others believe that the extensive case Ms. Willis brought is appropriate. Norman Eisen, who served as special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during Trump’s first impeachment, called the Willis approach “a state-focused bathyscaphe,” referring to a deep-sea submarine, in a recent essay he co-edited with Amy. Lee Copeland wrote: a former federal prosecutor in Georgia.
The indictment “greatly complements the federal case,” they wrote, adding “dimensionality, transparency and additional assurance of accountability to the former president and those who betrayed Georgia’s democracy.”
