It now appears that the myriads of court cases that were designed to keep Trump off the campaign trail – and cause him to have to expend millions upon millions of dollars on lawyers — Is coming to an end in terms of the campaign.
His civil case involving E. Jean Carroll is at the appeal stage. It will not draw a lot of public attention and nothing will be decided until well after the November election.
The so-called Hush Money Case is over. He will not be tied to a courtroom day after day and the political impact has been minimal. It is being appealed without much opportunity for “breaking news.” There is the issue of a possible errant juror to be resolved.
The Documents Case appears to be delayed until after the election. In the meantime, there will be a few very dry lawyer-ese hearings that will be handled by Trump’s attorneys. This Case has gotten a bit more complicated by accusations that prosecutors tampered with evidence.
The January 6th Case is also postponed until after the election – or at least after the Supreme Court reaches a decision on Trump’s immunity claim. While Special Counsel Jack Smith is also looking into election fraud along with the Fulton County prosecutor, it looks like that Case is a no-go until the end of the year – or even next year.
Up until recently, there was a good chance that the trumped-up RICO Case on election fraud in Georgia would go to trial before the election. But that was before Fulton County Prosecutor Fani Willis had the poor judgment of having her paramour put on the payroll as another prosecutor. While Judge Scott McAfee did not take her off the Case, that decision has reached the state Supreme Court, with a reasonable chance that she could still get booted. Regardless, it does not seem likely that a trial can launch between now and November. Blame Fani Willis for that one.
It looks like by the first of June Trump will be unfettered from court cases. He will be free to resume full-time campaigning. Which means that the strategy – yes, a strategy – to keep Trump hunkered down in a legal maze will be more difficult to carry out.
The strategy was successful in so far as it did keep Trump preoccupied for the past couple of months, but it obviously did not have the hoped-for result of hurting him in the polls. He comes out of the legal lockdown relatively unscathed. Even some of the MSNBC left-wing pundits are painfully expressing a belief that even the conviction in Manhattan will not cut into Trump’s support. If not that, then what?
So, there ‘tis.