An Appetizer before the Big Meal
An Appetizer before the Big Meal
An indictment is coming.
Happy Friday everyone. This Jackal is mostly going to be a placeholder for a much longer one detailing the forthcoming indictment of Donald Trump, which could happen as soon as today. When it drops, I will put something together for you to read. But I wanted to touch on a couple things before that happens.
Last week I wrote that another Trump indictment would be coming “…soon. Real soon.” About three days later, Trump himself shat out a post on Truth Social and said Special Counsel Jack Smith told him that he is a “target” in the January 6th investigation.
Trump is referring to a “target letter,” which is something the Federal (and sometimes State) government uses to help out defendants. It invites the recipient to testify before a grand jury, while fully acknowledging that any testimony given can be used against them because they are now the target of a criminal investigation. It is a way for the Justice Department to tell someone, “Hey, you should probably stop talking to us because we are going to indict you for a crime.” And an indictment almost always follows a target letter very quickly.
In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if Trump has already been indicted. According to him, he was given until Thursday to show up and testify. Assuming that he followed the advice of his lawyers and did not show up, the grand jury may have even voted on Trump’s indictment yesterday afternoon. That indictment may have been filed under seal and could be un-sealed today if Trump opens his mouth.
Or maybe the grand jury is taking its time. In any case, I would expect us to be reading another indictment of Trump by the end of next week.
Let’s also talk about two other things before I leave you:
Georgia prosecutors are also circling and are apparently ready to hand Trump a racketeering charge. That would almost certainly mean they have evidence of a conspiracy between Trump and his other lawyers in their efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
Judge Aileen Cannon set a May 2024 date for Trump’s trial in the classified documents case.
To jog your memory, Cannon is the Trump-appointed judge presiding over his classified documents case. There have been major concerns about her actions in the case since she previously bent herself over and backwards in order to help Trump during the investigation, only to be promptly smacked down by the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals (twice).
Lots of people on the Left are freaking out about the May 2024 court date, given that Smith asked for a trial to be held in December 2023, but Cannon’s order is totally kosher. As I wrote last week, cases involving classified documents take incredibly long to litigate. In fact, when asked by Cannon what the speediest trial was in such a case, Smith’s own team said that the fastest they found was 11 months. So May 2024 is right on the money.
However, I don’t think any previous case contained the number of documents that are related to Trump’s case, and in his we are dealing with documents at the highest levels of classification. In fact, I would not be surprised to see Smith drop some charges in order to protect the classified information in some of the documents. It’s worth noting that some of the math is wrong in the indictment itself, as it details Trump’s efforts to take steal certain documents, but it does not say he was indicted for those actions.
That likely means some of the things Trump took were so sensitive they could not even be named in the indictment, and charging him with illegally retaining them would jeopardize national security. Wild.
So, those are a few things to chew on before we read the indictment. As soon as it drops, I’ll give it a read and get back to you. Until then, enjoy the weekend.