Your Indictment news for July 21, 2023
Hi there,
Greetings from Sioux City, Iowa where I'm sitting at the front of our travel trailer as we take the slow (and hot) road out to drop our son at college in California. Yes, for those of you keeping count, this is now the second time I've been out with my family and indictment news has hit. So it goes, I signed up for this. Or something.
Anyway, hello! I'm Dan Sinker and this is a solo operation. If you would like to support this work, tips are very welcome via PayPal, Venmo, or CashApp. They mean a lot. Thanks.
OK, so a few updates for today:
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Previously: On Thursday, June 8th, Donald Trump was indicted on 37 federal counts stemming from his refusal to return classified documents to the National Archives. On Tuesday June 13th, he was arraigned in the courtroom of Judge Aileen Cannon where he pled not guilty on all counts and on June 20th, Judge Cannon set the trial date for August 14th, which only held up until today...
Today, Friday, July 21, 2023
Trump's trial date in the classified documents case has been, as expected, pushed back from its original start date of the rapidly-approaching August 14th. Prior to Judge Aileen Cannon's decision today, federal prosecutors had asked for a delay until December of this year, while Trump's defense wanted an indefinite delay until after the 2024 election. Judge Cannon split the difference and set the trial to start on or around May 20, 2024. The new date falls near the end of the Republican primary calendar, which means Trump could have sewn up the nomination by then and would stand trial as the party's presumptive nominee. That is, if the date holds (or, I guess, if he isn't the nominee). There are still plenty of pretrial motions to come and the possibility that some of those will further delay the trial is very real. (Source: Washington Post)
The May 20th trial date means that Trump will first stand trial on the criminal charges he faces in New York State, which is set for March 25, 2024. These two trials join a stacked calendar for Trump, who also faces a civil trial for fraud against the Trump Organization which is set for October 2nd of this year, and a second defamation suit from E Jean Carroll which goes to trial on January 15th (because neither of these trials are criminal trials, I won't be covering them in detail). Not to mention a Republican primary calendar that sees its first votes cast in mid-January. (Source: Bloomberg)
And then there's the very real possibility of still more indictments to come. First, the one we've known about, Fulton County district attorney Fani T Willis's investigation into Trump and his associates' attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia. Indictments are expected to drop in Willis's investigation sometime in the first few weeks of August. As opposed to the New York case, which only charged Trump, or the federal charges which are against Trump and a single aide, almost 20 people have been warned by Willis that they are targets of the investigation and could face charges. When those finally hit, it's going to be something. (Source: New York Times)
Finally, did someone say "target"? That brings us to the second indictment (potentially) still to come. Earlier this week Trump disclosed that he had received a target letter from federal special counsel Jack Smith who, in addition to leading the investigation on the Mar-a-Lago documents case, is also heading up the investigation into the myriad of shenanigans around January 6. That investigation, which has been ongoing for years, appears to be coming to a close and it now seems that another federal indictment of Trump is likely. (Source: Politico)
What's coming next: This entire update is big one big "what's coming next" and really, the answer is A LOT OF WAITING but, eventually, trials.
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So remember how I said we were on the road to drop my son at college? I'm going to just get this out of the way right now: if any indictments drop the week of August 14th, you will not hear from me because that's the week we'll be moving my kid into his dorm room and I will be too busy crying. So yes almost certainly that will be when Fani Willis drops her indictments. Sorry.
Hey, while I have you here, if you want to check out something I'm working on that's entirely different, I'd love to direct you to Question Mark, Ohio, the sprawling and surreal storytelling project myself and novelist Joe Meno are creating. We recently launched a website that will catch you up on the story-to-now as a series of episode summaries. There's also a newsletter and you can sign up on the town website.
OK, back to the indictment: if this update was helpful to you, it's probably helpful to someone else, so send people to indictment.fyi/signup and they can start getting this newsletter too Thanks for spreading the word.
Finally, this whole project is done for free because I believe that good information should be available to those that want it, but a tip via PayPal, Venmo, or CashApp is always appreciated and a great way of showing your support for this newsletter, but only if you can. Thank you so much.
I'm glad you're here,
Dan