Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team took a sledgehammer to ex-President Donald Trump’s motion to delay his trial indefinitely with a blistering filing.

Almost a year ago now, the FBI raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort home kicked off a stream of invective and threats against the FBI and eventually led to Trump’s arrest and arraignment on 37 counts related to violations of the Espionage Act.

Trump’s attorneys have now asked Judge Aileen Cannon — a Trump appointee — to delay the trial indefinitely, and on Thursday, the Justice Department responded in scathing fashion.

Right out of the gate, the filing says Cannon “should not even consider” a delay at this point:

The United States files this reply in support of its Motion for Continuance and Proposed Revised Scheduling Order (ECF No. 34, “Mot.”). In their response in opposition to the Motion (ECF No. 66, “Resp.”), Defendants Trump and Nauta claim unequivocally that they cannot receive a fair trial prior to the conclusion of the next presidential election, urge the Court to withdraw the current scheduling Order (ECF No. 28), and request that the Court not even consider a new trial date until some unspecified later time. Resp. at 9, 10. There is no basis in law or fact for proceeding in such an indeterminate and open-ended fashion, and the Defendants provide none. For the reasons discussed below and in the Government’s Motion, the Court should reset the trial date in this action for December 11, 2023.

The filing goes on to knock down Trump’s reasons for delay point by point, like their assertions about selecting a jury:

Defendants’ claim that this Court could not select an impartial jury until after the presidential election does not justify further delay here. Resp. at 9. First and most importantly, there is no reason to credit the claim. Our jury system relies on the Court’s authority to craft a thorough and effective jury selection process, and on prospective jurors’ ability and willingness to decide cases based on the evidence presented to them, guided by legal instructions from the Court. To be sure, the Government readily acknowledges that jury selection here may merit additional protocols (such as a questionnaire) and may be more time-consuming than in other cases, but those are reasons to start the process sooner rather than later.

Trump advisers have admitted to Maggie Haberman in private that delaying the trial until after the election means that if Trump wins, he can make the case against him “go away.”

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