(RepublicanDaily.org) – Lawyers of former president Donald Trump are raising a ruckus over the date set for their client’s trial, claiming for it to be politically motivated.
In an interview with anchor Shannon Bream on Fox News Sunday, Alina Habba, spokeswoman for Trump and a member of his legal team, said that “there’s very much a coordinated effort” in the way the trial was scheduled. Habba said that the prosecution was being “intentional” and implied that Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis, Special Counsel Jack Smith and the government were working together.
“I can tell you that it’s to tie him up,” Habba said, adding that all the steps prosecutors have been taking were “definitely political.” She pointed out that the government “intentionally waited years and years and years” and only just happened to bring it out “when he (Trump) is the leading candidate for the Republican Party.”
Both Smith and Willis are pushing for earlier turnarounds for the completion of the trials against the former commander-in-chief, on grounds that the public needs to know the verdicts as soon as possible. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is presiding over Trump’s election interference case set a trial date of March 4 – which is smack in the middle of the Republican presidential primaries – while Willis wants the trials to begin as early as fall this year.
In a separate interview with Fox News, former attorney general and one-time Trump ally Bill Barr said that at least one of the cases would see a verdict by the end of the summer. And while he somewhat agrees with the sentiment that Trump’s woes are largely politically-driven in nature, he felt that the federal cases in particular were “legitimate” and that they should be tried. He did agree with the prosecution that the cases should be concluded as soon as possible.
“If there’s a chance to get it (Trump’s cases) resolved before the election, it should be, because the American people deserve to know. These are potential crimes that involve moral turpitude,” Barr said.
Besides the trials coinciding with the election, Trump’s lawyers have also reasoned that they need a lot of time to prepare given the scope of the trials as well as the number of documents involved. In filings submitted to the court, Trump’s legal team called the cases “not just complex or unusual,” but “terra incognita.”
However, when asked if the former president needed to prepare for the trial, Habba stated that there was little need to do so. “He’s (Trump) incredibly intelligent and he knows the ropes,” she said, adding that her client did not need to prepare because he did nothing wrong.
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