Another critical week riddled with deadlines is looming for Donald Trump after the Republican presidential frontrunner received two legal blows last week.
Trump is facing four criminal indictments and a total of 91 felony charges. On Thursday, Trump learned that the Stormy Daniels hush-money trial will go ahead as planned, beginning on March 25. Trump also was recently hit with a massive $355 million fine in a New York civil fraud case for scheming to inflate the value of his assets to get more favorable terms from banks and insurers. The coming week brings another slew of key developments in three of the former president’s criminal trials.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to all felony counts and has denied any wrongdoing in all of the cases against him. Newsweek reached out to Trump’s campaign by email for comment on Monday afternoon.
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Mar-a-Lago Classified Documents Case:
Tuesday:
Trump’s busy legal week begins on Tuesday with the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case, in which Trump is charged with retaining national defense information—including U.S. nuclear secrets and plans for military retaliation in the event of an attack—and obstructing the government’s efforts to retrieve them.
A Tuesday deadline requires Trump’s legal team to file final motions or documents concerning an accusation made against the government in which Trump’s team claims there is evidence of “vindictive prosecution” and requested documents supporting the claim, although Special Counsel Jack Smith counterargued that he is not required to fulfill the request.
Overturning Election Results Case:
Wednesday:
Wednesday shifts the attention to Georgia, where Trump and 18 others are accused of allegedly attempting to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss in Georgia. District Attorney Fani Willis is leading the case against the defendants.
In an attempt to disqualify Willis and her team and get his charges dropped, Michael Roman, a former Trump campaign staffer and one of the co-defendants in the case, brought forward allegations of a personal relationship between Willis and a special prosecutor on the case, Nathan Wade, in early January.
Willis testified about the accusations last week, and Roman is expected to meet with Judge Scott McAfee on Wednesday, according to a report by news website Raw Story.
Wednesday also is the soonest a decision from the Supreme Court could be issued regarding the Colorado 14th Amendment case, which attempts to bar Trump from the Colorado ballots for the 2024 presidential election.
Stormy Daniels Hush Money Case:
Thursday:
Thursday returns attention to the Stormy Daniels case, where Trump’s legal team is required to submit any motions requesting to exclude evidence and the reasoning behind those exclusions, Raw Story reported.
Trump’s legal team also is required to submit all pre-trial motions regarding excluded evidence for the Mar-a-Lago case on the same day.
End of Week:
Friday brings a deadline for responses following Smith’s effort to convince a judge to reconsider a decision against redacting information about key witnesses in the Mar-a-Lago case, such as those working for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the National Archives.
Trump faces another presidential election development on Friday as well, as Illinois will go to court in its fight to ban Trump from the 2024 presidential ballot.
Impact on Trump:
Trump is not required to appear at any of his legal hearings this week, according to Michael McAuliffe, a former federal prosecutor and former elected state attorney, but that doesn’t make the former president’s legal load any lighter.
“This week is a good example of filing deadlines in multiple cases addressing various pre-trial matters. Some issues are mundane, but others are very important and might create avenues for appellate review,” McAuliffe told Newsweek. “For example, if District Judge Eileen Cannon declines to modify her current order requiring discovery production of certain documents in the Mar-a-Lago case by the special counsel’s team, Jack Smith will likely appeal her decision to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Any such appeal might reveal the appellate court’s view of her handling of the discovery issue, and theoretically, the case.
“Some of the week’s possible legal case developments have a significant impact on Trump, but there is nothing further to do,” McAuliffe added. “The Colorado ballot case is an example. The Court could issue an opinion after the recent oral arguments about whether Trump’s exclusion from the Colorado presidential ballot was proper. While the case is about the insurrectionist exclusion section in the Fourteenth Amendment and Trump is a party, the case likely will be decided in Trump’s favor for reasons unrelated to Donald Trump.”
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.