00:00 We're just over half a year away from the presidential election in the United States.
00:04 Donald Trump is of course the frontrunner for the Republican Party nomination
00:07 to challenge President Joe Biden.
00:09 Well, Trump is the first former president to be criminally prosecuted and he faces an important
00:14 week during which the outcome of various legal cases could determine what, if any,
00:18 immunity he has as a former president.
00:20 Well, this in turn will affect his chances at the ballot box in November.
00:24 Well, for more, I'm joined by our international affairs commentator, Doug Herbert.
00:27 Doug, welcome to the programme.
00:29 A busy week for Mr Trump and his lawyers.
00:31 Let's start by talking about what's happening at the Supreme Court.
00:34 Yeah, it is a busy week and we do keep talking about Trump's legal jeopardy.
00:38 It's a little bit like the boy who cried wolf.
00:39 This really is a week of big, big, big goings on.
00:43 One commentator called it, Trump's schedule this week, a litigious hellscape.
00:48 And why?
00:49 Well, first of all, let's start with the Supreme Court.
00:51 The Supreme Court right now is, yesterday, Trump and his lawyers filed a ruling basically
00:57 trying to overturn a ruling by an appeals court, a lower court, saying that Trump essentially
01:03 is not immune from prosecution for his efforts to subvert, that is to overturn the results
01:08 of the 2020 election.
01:09 Trump and his lawyers are appealing that, saying that that would be a violation of justice
01:14 and voters' rights.
01:15 And the Supreme Court has to now consider this case.
01:18 And the first question is, will they issue what Trump and his lawyers are asking for,
01:22 which is a pause in that ruling, which essentially frees the case?
01:25 It's already been frozen, but keep it frozen.
01:28 That's called a stay.
01:29 Now, if the court were to issue that stay, it would postpone the trial, perhaps for months,
01:34 maybe not, if not indefinitely, until after the election.
01:37 If they don't issue the stay or if they reject the claim entirely, reject Trump's demands
01:44 entirely, it would be punted right back to a U.S. district court where the case would
01:49 presumably be set to resume.
01:51 It would be given a green light, essentially, to go forward.
01:54 And that could happen as early as this spring.
01:56 And the timetable here is crucial because if it starts this spring, it could actually
02:00 get the wheels of a criminal trial in motion relatively quickly before the real heat of
02:05 the campaign this summer with the Republican conventions.
02:08 What happens is the jeopardy arises if Trump does sort of win or at least get the Supreme
02:12 Court to dither, to tarry a little bit in this case, in acting quickly as Trump's, as
02:18 the prosecutors would like.
02:19 If they don't act quickly, it could punt the ball down the field a lot.
02:23 That's exactly what Trump's strategy has been, to hem, to haul, to postpone, to try
02:27 to make sure these cases, if and when they ever happen, don't happen until after a 2024
02:32 election.
02:33 Presumably, if Trump then were to win, he would be able to basically drop all the charges
02:37 against himself and stop those cases in their tracks.
02:40 OK, so the Supreme Court is one key focus for Donald Trump's lawyers.
02:46 Talk us through some of the other places where they're going to be busy this week.
02:49 There's a bunch of other criminal trials in courts right now.
02:53 Yesterday, we actually had Trump making an unexpected appearance in a Florida courthouse.
02:58 That was a case involving the federal case, again, criminal case, involving classified
03:02 documents and the allegations that Trump hoarded top secret files at his Mar-a-Lago country
03:07 estate after he left office.
03:09 And he's also, and also then obstructing efforts by federal authorities to try to retrieve
03:14 those documents.
03:15 That's a big case.
03:16 It's been on hold as well.
03:17 So far, right now, the judge in that case, the prosecutors believe, has been sort of
03:22 shown sympathy to Trump.
03:24 And they fear that that case is one that could be delayed indefinitely.
03:28 On Thursday, we're going to have a pretrial hearing in the case that was the sort of original
03:32 one that we all heard about.
03:34 Trump's alleged $130,000 payment to a porn star, Stormy Daniels, in order to essentially
03:40 buy her silence about an adulterous affair that the two allegedly had in the closing
03:45 weeks of the 2016 campaign.
03:47 It's possible that Stormy Daniels herself, she says she will testify at that trial.
03:52 But that already, that will have a hearing this Thursday.
03:56 A trial date had tentatively been set for March 25th.
03:59 Trump is going to try to have those charges, that case thrown out as well or delayed.
04:02 Also Thursday, case in Georgia, Fulton County, Georgia.
04:06 That is on charges that Trump tried to subvert, overturn the results of the 2020 election
04:11 in that state.
04:12 The problem here is that the district attorney is prosecuting the case, Fannie Willis.
04:17 She's admitted to having a romantic relationship with the special prosecutor, one of the special
04:22 prosecutors in the case.
04:23 And those that admitted that that admission has now led Trump to file basically an appeal
04:30 saying that those prosecutors should be thrown off the case if there's going to be a hearing
04:34 in that case Thursday.
04:35 If the judge throws those prosecutors off the case, that would obviously punt the ball
04:39 down, postpone the case even more.
04:40 And finally, on Friday, we're going to have a judge in New York releasing his ruling,
04:45 his ruling about Trump's punishment in a civil fraud trial that's involving his empire,
04:50 his business in New York State that could see him, if convicted, of having to pay hundreds
04:54 of millions in fines and also being severed from his New York State business empire.
04:59 A lot of legal jeopardy ahead, not just at the Supreme Court, but on all levels.
