Garland urges 'speedy trial' in Trump election subversion case: 'Prosecutors followed the facts and the law'

Attorney General Merrick Garland on Thursday weighed in on the election subversion case against Donald Trump, urging a “speedy trial” for the former president as the 2024 election heats up.

In an exclusive interview with CNN, Garland echoed Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith’s call for a speedy trial, noting “the cases were brought” in 2023.

Last August, Smith unveiled a federal grand jury indictment against Trump, alleging the former president conspired to defraud the United States when he and six co-conspirators plotted to overturn the results of 2020 presidential election. Trump’s efforts to circumvent President Joe Biden’s win, Smith claims, culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. That trial is set for March, and is one of two federal cases brought by Smith’s team (the second is the 40-count indictment pertaining to Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, FL).

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“The cases were brought last year,” Garland told CNN in an interview published Friday. “The prosecutor has urged speedy trials, with which I agree. And it’s is now in the hands of the judicial system, not in our hands. Special prosecutors followed the facts and the law. They brought cases when they thought they were ready.”

“The matter is now in the hands of the trial judge to determine when a trial will take place,” Garland noted.

Thursday, Federal Judge Tanya Chatkan — who is trying Trump’s election subversion case at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia — told Smith “to stop submitting court filings without her permission … after the former president’s legal team complained that proceedings were supposed to be on hold,” CNN reports.

Per CNN:

The case is on hold until the federal appeals court in Washington, DC, decides key questions about immunity around the presidency and gives further direction what should happen next for Trump’s case.

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In December, the U.S. Supreme Court declined an effort by Smith to fast-track the former president’s immunity claim.

“The issue will now be decided by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which has signaled it will act quickly to decide the case,” the Associated Press reported in December. But Smith warns the immunity question is unlikely to make its way through the courts before SCOTUS’ summer break.

Read Garland's interview at CNN.

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