'Just ridiculous': DOJ veterans tear into Trump tactic to halt criminal trials

Donald Trump and his lawyers are trying to stave off his criminal trials by claiming they amount to "election interference," but Department of Justice veterans say that argument carries no weight.

The former president faces 91 felony counts in four jurisdictions, and among various strategies aimed at delaying those trials has been his interpretation of what he calls DOJ's “very strict rules and regulations” prohibiting the prosecution of “a Political Opponent, or anyone, RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF HIS/HER CAMPAIGN."

Fact-checkers have already described the assertion as erroneous.

Now Department of Justice veterans are laying into Trump's claim.

“Trial schedules of criminal cases ought to be immune from allegations of election interference by Trump and his lawyers,” said Paul Pelletier, the former acting chief of DoJ’s fraud section.

“Once anyone is charged with a crime, the setting of a trial is purely within the purview of the independent judiciary and should be both blind and immune to outside political calendars and machinations by Trump or his lawyers.”

The ex-president and presumptive Republican presidential nominee is scheduled to stand trial starting March 25 in Manhattan, where he's been charged with 34 felony counts related to hush money payments to adult movie actress Stormy Daniels.

Legal experts say there's no reason his candidacy should prevent his prosecution.

“There has been a long-standing policy against bringing new federal charges in the run-up to an election,” said former federal prosecutor Paul Rosenzweig. “But there has never been a policy against continuing an ongoing case just because a criminal defendant becomes a candidate for office.”

“If there were such a policy," Rosenweig added, "a charged criminal could avoid trial by the simple expedient of running for office.”

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear Trump's claims of absolute immunity, which could stall out his election subversion trial in Washington, D.C., even if they ultimately rule against him. But judges have so far not been persuaded by Trump's election interference arguments.

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“The idea that prosecutions addressing systematic efforts to overturn legitimate election results are themselves ‘election interference’ is just ridiculous,” said former deputy attorney general Donald Ayer who served during the George H.W. Bush years. “They are the only way that the integrity of our electoral process can be defended.”

Even one of Trump's former White House lawyers agreed the argument was farcical.

“Trump’s claims of political persecution and election interference are part and parcel of the same disease, his crippling narcissism,” said former justice official Ty Cobb, who was a White House lawyer for part of Trump's presidency. “It’s classically hypocritical coming from the unchallengeable king of election interference.”