By Dave Goldiner, New York Daily News
Former President Donald Trump will face arraignment Thursday after his historic indictment for allegedly trying to overturn the 2020 election, a scheme that culminated with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
Trump says he will turn himself in to authorities and will plead not guilty at the initial hearing in Washington, D.C., before a federal magistrate judge.
The four-count indictment accuses Trump of scheming with six unindicted co-conspirators to stay in power in what amounted to an unprecedented coup after he lost the election to President Joe Biden.
Trump, 77, is likely to seek delaying his trial until after the 2024 vote when he hopes to return to the White House and order the case scrapped.
But it’s far from clear that such stalling tactics will work with Judge Tanya Chutkan, who has already presided over 31 trials of Trump loyalists charged in the Jan. 6 attack.
What will happen at Trump’s arraignment?
Trump could appear remotely via video but he has said he wants to show up in person to face charges.
As standard practice, Trump is expected to be arrested and booked before being brought before a judge and asked to enter a plea. The hearing will likely be very brief.
After his past arraignment in Miami, Trump made an impromptu campaign-style stop at a Cuban restaurant to bask in the adoration of loyal supporters. It’s unknown if he plans to stage a similar move.
Who is Judge Tanya Chutkan?
Trump’s case was randomly assigned to U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan, a nine-year veteran judge who was appointed by former President Barack Obama.
A Jamaican immigrant, Chutkan ruled against Trump in a case where the White House was forced to hand over presidential records to the Jan. 6 congressional committee, rejecting his executive privilege claim.
Chutkan, 61, has also presided over 31 trials of accused Jan. 6 attackers and has been tougher than any of her colleagues in sentencing the rioters. She handed jail or prison time to every single attacker and exceeded prosecutors’ proposed punishment in nine cases.
More ominously for Trump, Chutkan has already seen plenty of evidence of the former president’s central role in the attack on the Capitol.
“(The attacker) did not go to the United States Capitol out of any love for our country,” Chutkan said in sentencing one rioter. “He went for one man.”
When could Trump face trial?
No one knows for sure, but special counsel Jack Smith has dropped some clues.
Smith mentioned in his brief statement Tuesday that he plans to seek a “speedy trial.” Some legal analysts believe the case could be tried before the end of 2023 or early 2024.
Unlike the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case, there are no issues involving national security secrets, which require special hearings and potential delays.
Analysts also note that the indictment has been filed in a streamlined way to keep things as simple as possible. Smith’s decision to initially charge Trump alone and to not indict any of the six unindicted co-conspirators appears to be a move to avoid delays stemming from multiple defendants.
But most lawyers believe Trump could succeed in delaying the case for months, perhaps even until after the election.
Trump’s legal schedule is already crowded: he faces a May 20, 2024, trial date in the Mar-a-Lago documents case, a Jan. 15, 2024, date in the second E. Jean Carroll civil rape case, and a March 2024 trial in the Manhattan case related to hush-money payments made to porn actress Stormy Daniels.
It’s possible that federal prosecutors or judges could attempt to get the state and civil cases pushed back to accommodate their cases.
What’s Trump’s best defense?
Trump’s lawyers say he was merely exercising his First Amendment rights by denouncing the 2020 election as rigged for Biden.
Prosecutors agree that he had the right to be wrong or lie or even to believe his own lies.
But the indictment carefully lays out Trump’s intricate plan to act on those lies, including recruiting slates of fake electors, bullying ex-Vice President Mike Pence into joining his scheme, and eventually urge his supporters to physically block Congress from certifying Biden’s win.
It’s unlikely Chutkan will permit Trump to open an entire side trial on the veracity of his “Stop the Steal” campaign, especially after scores of judges rejected his claims in the weeks after the election.
What happens to the six co-conspirators?
Five of the six co-conspirators have been identified by news organizations: Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Sidney Powell, Jeffrey Clark and Ken Chesebro.
Any of them could eventually face charges themselves, as the indictment suggests by describing their various roles in Trump’s alleged scheme.
Prosecutors may hope to convince one or more of the co-conspirators to cooperate and testify against Trump in exchange for immunity or leniency.
Does Smith have a secret weapon against Trump?
The indictment suggests that at least one person in Trump’s inner circle has been dishing to Smith — and many political observers believe it could be ex-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.
His role in the various aspects of the effort to overturn the election was at least as central as any of the other co-conspirators and Meadows was by Trump’s side during many key moments in the alleged scheme.
The charging document describes a previously unreported meeting on Jan. 6 when Trump praised the rioters as he watched television in the outer Oval Office at the White House after his 4:17 p.m. tweet praising the Capitol rioters but asking them to end the attack.
The indictment pointedly does not say how prosecutors learned about the meeting, raising eyebrows that it could have been revealed by Meadows.
“See, this is what happens when they try to steal an election,” Trump said, according to the indictment. “These people are angry.”
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