Many of Donald Trump's criminal cases are in limbo when it comes to a timeline for the eventual trial, but one prior case from a former federal prosecutor points to what could be next.
Trump is fighting state and federal prosecutors to delay the criminal cases he's facing, with his legal team seeking trials after the 2024 election --- including as late as 2026. No one knows when those trials could ultimately take place, but former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner said on Saturday that he prosecuted a case with a similar fact pattern.
Some clues about what could happen with Trump can be found in that case, according to Kirschner.
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"Let me just bring my personal experience to bear on that issue, having tried large scale RICO cases in federal court in Washington D.C. We handled a case that had some very close parallels, obviously a different set of defendants than we're dealing with here, but we indicted more than two dozen defendants in a large scale RICO case," he said.
He continued:
"By the time we made our way to trial, all but 13 had played out. Pleaded guilty, some with cooperation, some without. Now, courtroom security is ordinarily what dictates how many defendants can go to trial at one time, safely, securely. And I suspect those concerns are present in every jurisdiction around the country. The United States marshal service and federal court in Washington, D.C. has a pretty hard and fast rule: They can only provide courtroom security for six defendants at a time. What did that mean for us, the prosecutors? We did trial number one, we tried six defendants, that case was tried by some colleagues of mine at the U.S. attorney's office, we tried trial two with six defendants, I tried that case with some of my federal prosecutors, and then we had to do a third trial, because we had 13 defendants, so he had one RICO defendant standing alone."
He then added:
"That was trial number three, I also tried that case. So those trials unfolded over the course of about three years. So I suspect what you're going to see is one, a number of defendants pleading out, so it's not going to be 19 going to trial, and ... I suspect that you may then see the trial occur in waves."