The federal prosecution of Donald Trump, a former president, is certainly unprecedented. But trying sensitive cases has been done before — and rather quickly.
Special counsel Jack Smith makes that latter point in response to Trump’s quest to push off his classified documents trial while he runs for president. Arguing for delay, Trump and his co-defendant, Walt Nauta, cited sensitive cases that look longer than a year to play out.
One was the case of Reality Winner, the national security contractor charged with leaking a report on Russian interference in the 2016 election that Trump won. She was arrested in June 2017 and pleaded guilty the following June, a few months before her trial was set to begin in October 2018.
The other case Trump and Nauta cited in their motion for delay centered on a Chinese national who was charged with spying in January 2019 but wasn’t tried until September 2022.
However, the DOJ, which wants to start Trump’s trial in December, noted in response Thursday that some of the delay in the Chinese national’s case was due to the Covid pandemic. When it comes to Winner’s case, the special counsel noted the judge there initially set trial for less than five months after her arrest and arraignment.
In addition to pushing back on Trump’s examples, the DOJ cited two speedy espionage prosecutions: One of a former CIA agent who spied for China that took less than a year, and another of a former sailor who tried to spy for Russia that took less than nine months.
Both cases were prosecuted in the Eastern District of Virginia, which is more experienced in these types of cases. But the DOJ maintained in its filing to Judge Aileen Cannon in Florida that there’s “no reason to believe that the CIPA [Classified Information Procedures Act] proceedings in this Court would be any less efficient.”
Cannon has been efficient so far in handling Trump’s criminal case (as opposed to her handling of the previous civil litigation that prompted calls for her recusal in the criminal case).
Her impending decision on whether to continue efficiently, buy into Trump’s indefinite delay or strike some middle ground — say, with a spring or summer 2024 date — will be her most important call yet.
