A former FBI official outlined what he expects will — and won't — come now after former President Donald Trump entered a not-guilty plea Tuesday in his trimmed-down Washington D.C. election subversion case.
Last month, Smith tweaked the charges to remove references that Trump tried to order the Justice Department to carry out corrupt acts to obstruct the election. The references couldn't be proven under the Supreme Court's ruling because they rely on evidence that is immune from review.
Judge Tanya Chutkan is tasked with deciding how to proceed with Trump's criminal case over his role in trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election. This includes scheduling, determining which witnesses can be called, and whether prosecutors can take Trump to trial, according to CNN.
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Andrew McCabe, who served as the deputy director of the FBI from 2016 to 2018, told CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer on Tuesday that while there are a lot of unanswered questions about how that'll happen, he thinks it's "unlikely" there will be a so-called "mini-trial" or that witnesses will testify in court.
Some experts have said Smith could have an evidentiary hearing, essentially a “mini-trial,” which would hear witness testimony and receive other relevant evidence from both parties, either before or after the election.
"I think it's much more likely that the special counsel will do as much of this process on the back-and-forth arguments on paper through motion filings," McCabe said. "It's possible that they'll have some oral arguments around those things as well."
Chutkan, he said, will have a "streamlined, focused, no-nonsense procedure that's designed to figure out what evidence can be used in this case as it goes forward, and what evidence and potentially charges need to be left behind."
Watch the clip below or at this link.