Congressman Eric Swalwell said that former President Donald Trump is "acting like a guilty person" in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case after a Florida judge denied his petition to start the criminal trial after the 2024 election.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, set a trial date for May 20, 2024, despite arguments from the former president's defense team that he could not receive a fair trial while running for re-election. Trump has pleaded not guilty to all 37 felony counts related to the Department of Justice [DOJ] investigation into his handling of classified documents upon leaving the White House.
Swalwell, a Democrat from California and former House impeachment manager for Trump's second impeachment in January 2021, spoke with MSNBC's Joy Reid on Friday about the former president's trial date, stating that he wanted "to make a point that [Special Counsel] Jack Smith can't make."
Former President Donald Trump speaks to supporters in Bedminster, New Jersey, on June 13, 2023. Democratic Representative Eric Swalwell said during an MSNBC appearance Friday that Trump was "acting like a guilty person" in the classified documents case. Spencer Platt/Getty Images
"If Donald Trump was so innocent, and this prosecution was so rigged, wouldn't an innocent person subjected to a rigged prosecutor crawl through glass and walk over fire to exercise their speedy trial right?" Swalwell said.
"Someone who is as innocent as Donald Trump claims he is would not want to delay justice," he continued. "The whole point of a speedy trial right, which he could use and go to trial pretty quickly, is to protect people who are wrongfully accused. And so he's sure acting like a guilty person."
Former Trump National Security Adviser John Bolton echoed Swalwell's comments during a CNN appearance Wednesday night, telling anchor Kaitlan Collins, "If Trump really wanted justice, he would be saying, I want to go to trial as soon as possible and remove this cloud from over my candidacy. That's not what he wants to do."
Trump has maintained that the trials against him are part of a "witch hunt" to upset his reelection chances. The former president has been largely considered the front-runner for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination.
In her order released Friday, Cannon offered up a rough timeline for how Trump's case will proceed, and said that it was "clear" that "a continuance is warranted and in accordance with the requirements of the Speedy Trial Act."Smith had previously asked for a mid-December start date.
Trump's campaign called Cannon's order "a major setback to the DOJ's crusade to deny President Trump a fair legal process" in a statement on Friday, adding, "The extensive schedule allows President Trump and his legal team to continue fighting this empty hoax."
The new timeline gives Trump about two months between the Mar-a-Lago trial and the criminal trial set for late March in Manhattan court, where the former president is facing 34 counts in connection to hush money payments made during the 2016 presidential campaign.
Newsweek previously reached out to Trump's press team via email for further comment.
OsellusK on July 22nd, 2023 at 12:25 UTC »
Trump consistently behaves like a guilty person and so many people being blind to it is one of the most confusing things about his existence as a political figure.
laberdog on July 22nd, 2023 at 12:23 UTC »
If he were innocent he wouldn’t be Trump
UtzTheCrabChip on July 22nd, 2023 at 12:11 UTC »
I think it's pretty clear that Trump's defensive strategy for all crimes is "win election and pardon myself".
However, there are other reasons to want this drawn out. Such as a) every charge gets him a boost in the GOP primary, which he'd like to sustain and b) he's still a narcissist who loves nothing better than being the top story in the news every day