Donald Trump's legal team is hoping to slow down the criminal trial through next year's election with an array of motions and challenges, his former attorney said.
Southern Florida's federal courts are known for their speedy "rocket docket," but the ex-president's lawyers hope to push back the trial a few months at a time and will almost certainly challenge any conviction all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, attorney Tim Parlatore told Axios.
“I wouldn't foresee this thing getting tried within a year,” said Parlatore, who left Trump's legal team last month. If there's ever a case that you know from the inception that it's going to go all the way to the Supreme Court this is it."
Parlatore predicted the former president's lawyers to file "fairly substantive motions to dismiss" the case, which will be presided over by Trump-appointed district court judge Aileen Cannon.
"I could also see them going through several discovery motions, and there will be fights over disclosure," Parlatore said. "I think each round of motions is going to take three months."
Parlatore said he believes the unredacted version of the search warrant application could "cause some issues" related to the process in which it was obtained, but special counsel Jack Smith insisted in his first public comments Friday that prosecutors had upheld "the highest ethical standards" throughout the case.
“My office will seek a speedy trial," Smith said.
