Donald Trump's Push to Delay Trials May Backfire: Former Prosecutor

Legal analyst and former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner said on Monday that Donald Trump's efforts to delay his criminal trials may backfire.

Trump, the front-runner for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, faces myriad legal troubles, with trials looming at the state and federal level. He has denied any wrongdoing in all cases. The former president's trial schedule begins January 16, with E. Jean Carroll's second defamation case against him. In March, two of his criminal trials are set to launch, with his federal 2020 election subversion case slated for Washington, D.C., on March 4, and the New York state trial in which Trump is accused of falsifying business records, on tap to begin March 25.

Two months later, the other federal criminal trial—regarding the former president's handling of classified documents—is scheduled to begin in Florida. Finally, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has requested August 5 as the trial date in Trump's Georgia state Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act case.

In an MSNBC opinion column published on Monday, Kirschner, a staunch Trump critic, details the ex-president's trial schedule, as the back-to-back cases' timelines can still change in the coming weeks and months.

Kirschner, while stating that the former president's defense team has angled to delay his trials until after the 2024 election, said that the plan to postpone may backfire.

"But while Trump might welcome the delay in the classified documents trial, this result may have some unanticipated consequences for him," Kirschner wrote.

Newsweek has reached out to Trump via email for comment Monday evening.

"Assuming the D.C. trial wraps up in late April or early May 2024, that would give Trump and his attorneys ample time to prepare for the Georgia trial set to begin in August. Trump's "victory" may be a hollow one, as a postponed Florida trial will do little more than free him up for his Georgia trial," Kirschner added.

This comes days after Trump and his lawyers applied for a vast array of classified documents in his Washington, D.C., election subversion case, in which he's accused of attempting to overturn the results of his 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden in the run-up to the January 6, 2021, siege on the U.S. Capitol waged by Trump supporters.

On Wednesday, Trump's legal team applied for 57 groups of documents, many of which are highly classified, on everything from Justice Department correspondence with President Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, to Trump's White House scheduling diary.

Trump's lawyers also applied for access to documents pertaining to alleged Russian and Iranian meddling in the 2020 election; alleged Chinese hacking of election computers; full details of all undercover agents deployed at the January 6 attack; and a vast array of correspondence related to voting in seven states during the 2020 election.

The request could delay Trump's trial by months, as it has in Trump's Florida case, in which he made a similar request where attorneys have to view the disclosed documents in secured rooms and use ultra-secure laptops.

Prosecutors in both cases have previously complained that Trump is deliberately aiming to delay his trials until after the 2024 election.

Paul Golden, partner at the Coffey Modica law firm in New York City, told Newsweek on Wednesday that Trump had "a host of potential strategies available" if elected president, including an application to the Supreme Court that the trials were unduly interfering with his presidential schedule.

According to Kirschner, however, despite Trump's efforts, he will still have to "face the music."

"Trying to figure out which of these trials will commence on a previously set trial date and which will be delayed to some future date is a bit like a game of musical chairs, with the parties not quite knowing when the music might stop. But one way or another, Donald Trump inevitably will have to face the music," Kirschner said.