Donald Trump indictment: Four takeaways from first Fulton County televised hearing
Kaelan Deese
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The details of former President Donald Trump‘s Fulton County, Georgia, racketeering trial began to unfold on Wednesday in the first televised hearing in the case since the indictment was handed up last month.
Special prosecutor Nathan Wade spoke on behalf of the district attorney’s office and said he expects a four-month-long trial with more than 150 witnesses. The hearing was over Trump’s former lawyers-turned-co-defendants’ bid to have their cases severed from the other 17 defendants.
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Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee denied a motion by Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell, who have filed a motion for a speedy trial, to sever their cases from each other, though he did not rule on whether to try the majority of defendants during an Oct. 23 trial next month.
McAfee said he aims to decide important questions about the trial schedule, such as what to do about the 17 other defendants, by early next week.
“The plan would be to try to resolve as many of these issues as we can this week, and to begin entering scheduling orders for the remaining defendants by either the end of this week or the early next week,” he said.
Here are four takeaways from the Wednesday hearing:
Trial is scheduled to begin for Chesebro and Powell on Oct. 23
While McAfee suggested he would separate Powell and Chesebro from the other 17, he ruled from the bench to deny their motions to sever their cases from one another. Through that ruling, he held they will go to trial on Oct. 23.
“I think that [McAfee] is very realistic that he is going to have the first trials on Oct. 23. He’s very certain on that,” constitutional attorney Andrew Lieb, of Lieb at Law, told the Washington Examiner.
Lieb said co-defendant John Eastman also filed to sever his case and requested a speedy trial, noting that could mean Eastman would head to trial at the same time as Powell and Chesebro.
McAfee seems skeptical of trying Trump and others so soon
McAfee did not appear convinced by prosecutors on District Attorney Fani Willis‘s team that they could hold a joint trial for all 19 defendants in October.
“It just seems a bit unrealistic that we can handle all 19 [defendants] in 40-something days,” McAfee said, though Lieb emphasized that the judge has still not made a final decision over a joint trial.
“I’ll tell you, as a litigator, ‘skeptical’ is really not something people should read too far into because judges are skeptical often and forget their mood the next time they read the papers,” Lieb said, adding that he still thinks it’s “unlikely” the 17 other defendants head to trial in October.
Jury selection will take a long time
The eventual jury selection for the racketeering trial will almost assuredly prevent the actual trial from commencing in late October, Lieb said.
“I think when we say the 23rd, we’re starting jury selection. It’s going to take a long time for jury selection, particularly though, if you try all 19 together,” Lieb added.
Wade noted that the four-month timeline for a trial does not include jury selection. A racketeering case in Fulton County against members of the Young Slime Life gang has been in the midst of jury selection for nearly eight months without any jurors selected for the case.
However, Lieb said a jury selection for a two- or three-defendant trial would likely take less time than selecting jurors for a joint trial.
Legal distancing strategy unfolds for pair of defendants
Attorneys for the two defendants on Wednesday sought to distance their clients from each other and the 17 co-defendants in the case.
Manny Arora, who represents Chesebro, argued his client was not involved in most of the scheme alleged by prosecutors, suggesting Chesebro was more rational than the other defendants, including Powell.
“Essentially, from what I understand from the public record, she was fired before this conspiracy actually even started up because she said something that was supposedly crazy and Trump people got rid of her,” Arora said of Powell.
Powell’s attorney, Brian Rafferty, made a similar suggestion, saying Powell didn’t know Chesebro and didn’t have any involvement in the false elector allegations levied at Chesebro.
Prosecutor Will Wooten, who was also present during the hearing, argued that because Willis’s office charged a racketeering case under Georgia’s specific racketeering law, “all of the evidence is admissible against all of the defendants.”
Lieb said he believes the prosecutors prevailed in their argument.
“They said, ‘No, this is a RICO case.’ And each individual act comprised the RICO, the racketeering statute, and so it’s not just the ones you’re a part of,” Lieb said.
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Chesebro is charged with violating the Georgia Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, conspiracy to impersonate a public officer, two counts of conspiracy to commit forgery in the first degree, two counts of conspiracy to commit false statements and writings, and conspiracy to commit filing false documents. Chesebro has pleaded not guilty and contends he was giving legal advice to Trump.
Powell, who has also pleaded not guilty, is charged with racketeering, conspiracy to commit election fraud, conspiracy to commit computer theft, trespass and invasion of privacy, and conspiracy to defraud the state. Prosecutors claimed Powell’s computer theft charge is related to an effort to access voting machines improperly in Coffee County, Georgia.