Former President Donald Trump's legal team is readying for his appearance Thursday afternoon in Washington, D.C., but it is the "unprecedented magnitude" of arguably the biggest legal case in U.S. history that has lawyer John Lauro thinking it might take "a year."
That is not a year to get started, but a potentially a full year at trial – for a former president running a presidential campaign – Lauro told NPR in an interview Wednesday night.
"This indictment literally lists election issues in seven states," he said. "So we'll be litigating a case of unprecedented magnitude.
"I've been involved in large white-collar cases for many years, over 40 years of practicing law, this is going to be one of the biggest cases in the history of the United States.
"The trial could last six months or nine months or even a year. So to expect that counsel is going to get ready in 90 days for a case like this is quite absurd."
The remarks echoed those earlier this week to NBC News, where he denounced special counsel Jack Smith's call for a "speedy trial" as an abuse of the Constitution's 6th Amendment.
"Well, speedy trial rights belong to the defense, not the government," Lauro said. "The government has an obligation to turn over a lot of material and a lot of information, which they've not done yet, but they will.
"You know, the special counsel has, or the Biden Justice Department, has been investigating this case for 3 1/2 years. And it just seems to me, in fairness, that we should have enough time to study the documents, be able to interview witnesses and look at the evidence in its totality, address a lot of legal issues with the judge as well.
"So what we want is a just trial, not simply a speedy trial. There's no need to railroad any defendant in the United States. And we're hoping the Justice Department will recognize that justice is more important than speed."
One of the first legal motions will be to get the trial moved out of Washington, D.C., where everyone expects Judge Tanya Chutkan and the 95% Democrat jury pool to be hostile toward Trump. Lauro suggested West Virginia would be more fair to the defense than D.C. or Virginia.
"Well, we're looking for a more diverse area that has a more balanced political jury pool," Lauro said. "You know, the country is very, very divided politically right now, this is a very divisive indictment. It goes to issues of free speech and political activity.
"So, we're looking for a jury that will be more balanced, and West Virginia was a state that was more evenly divided. And we're hoping for a jury that doesn't come with any implicit or explicit bias or prejudice.
"So it makes sense to go to a place like West Virginia."
Trump will make his first court appearance Thursday before Magistrate Judge Moxila A. Upadhyaya. Chutkan, a former assistant public defender who was nominated to the bench by President Barack Obama, will oversee Trump's case and potential trial.
Chutkan has often handed down prison sentences in Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol cases that are harsher than even President Joe Biden's Justice Department prosecutors recommended.
Regardless of where the trial is held, Biden's DOJ is shackling Trump's presidential campaign, effectively forcing him off the campaign trail with this trial, Lauro concluded.
"We're in an election cycle," he said. "The Biden administration decided to bring an indictment against a political opponent in the middle of a campaign. And the thought of President Trump having to spend his time at trial instead of actively debating and talking about the issues against his political opponent is something that I think the judge is going to consider.
"But more importantly, we have a challenge ahead to get ready. And there's a massive amount of information, and we're entitled to look at it."
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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