Watergate prosecutor issues warning about 'speedy trial' requests in Trump case

A flurry of former President Donald Trump's co-defendants in the Georgia election racketeering case are filing motions to request "speedy trials," a move that could separate the case from that of Trump himself. But these filings are not what they appear to be, warned former Watergate prosecutor Nick Akerman on MSNBC. Indeed, it could be an effort to take advantage of a highly technical loophole in Georgia law that could force prosecutors to throw their cases out.

"I think the most important thing right now is making sure that these cases get to trial immediately, both in Georgia and in the District of Columbia," Akerman told anchor Ari Melber. "We've got a hearing set up for Monday before Judge Chutkan. She's going to set a trial date. I'm hoping that it's going to be January/February. We also have an issue with the trial date in Georgia. We have Mr. Chesebro asking for a speedy trial. Normally with a multi-defendant case like that, that gets tagged to everybody. The judge at this point has said that at this time, it only relates to Mr. Chesebro. So the question is whether the D.A. is going to move to have the entire case put on in October or, in some way, this is going to be put over beyond even despite the invocation of the Speedy Trial Act. But under Georgia law, it's pretty strict that if they don't go at a certain time after he puts in his notice of speedy trial, it's an automatic acquittal. And the problem here is that the D.A. cannot be forced to try this case twice."

"Just briefly, you're explaining the strategy by some defendants is not necessarily that they really want the fastest trial possible," said Melber.

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"No, of course not," agreed Akerman.

"But they know there's a sanction there that would be normally what we could call a loophole," said Melber. "They're afforded that under the law, so it's not a bad loophole in the eyes of the way the Georgia law is written."

"It's a loophole in the sense that they're trying to make it look like Mr. Chesebro wants his speedy trial rights when, in fact, I'm sure he's been put up to it by the other defendants," said Akerman. "They all talk. They all have — I'm sure they have a joint defense agreement. And this is not something that was dreamed out of thin air."

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