Couple quick housekeeping notes: I’ll be traveling Friday and Monday so Off Message will likely be dark Monday—though you never know these days! I’ll also be traveling Thursday April 11, and it might interfere with that week’s AMA—again, you never can tell! The following week, Donald Trump’s first felony trial begins and I’ll be planted in the driver’s seat here til at least August. Now as to Stuff That Happened Since Last Week…
Trump’s first criminal trial (#pornstarhushmoney) begins April 15. My basic understanding is that he has few delay tactics left in his toolkit for this case (New York state, rather than federal) so the timeframe, if not the exact date, is pretty fixed. At the same time, jury selection is gonna be tough and probably take a while.
Also at the same time: I don’t have much faith in the prognosticative talents of the kinds of lawyers who tell me things like “he has few delay tactics left in his toolkit.” Trump is plainly much hungrier to evade justice than most of the people positioned to mete it out are to deliver it. So if there’s a way, he’ll find it.
Case in point: The judge in the case, Juan Merchan, imposed a gag order on Trump to protect the case from witness and jury tampering, and the prosecutors from his violent thugs. Trump has arguably violated the specific terms of the order already, but the truly wild thing is that he attacked the judge’s daughter based on something posted to an imposter Twitter account she doesn’t control. And yet he walks free like a defendant on good behavior.
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