Democrat Rep. Adam Schiff expressed frustration over the delays in Donald Trump’s multiple trials and suggested that the Justice Department should have moved faster to indict the former president, Politico reported.
In an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union” on March 17, Schiff also criticized the Supreme Court for compounding the delays by scheduling oral arguments in Trump’s presidential immunity defense for late April.
Schiff noted that the Justice Department waited at least a year before investigating Trump for his involvement in the January 6 riot at the Capitol and suggested that the delay “contributed to a situation where none of these trials go forward.”
Trump’s federal election interference trial, which was scheduled to begin this month, was delayed to allow Trump to appeal Judge Tanya Chutkan’s rejection of his claim of presidential immunity.
Meanwhile, the New York hush money trial scheduled for March 25 was delayed until April 15 at the earliest.
Schiff told Dana Bash that there was a chance that Trump “could evade justice by delaying justice,” a tactic the California Democrat claimed was one Trump has used “throughout his career.”
However, it is the federal case into Trump’s 2020 election interference that Schiff believes is the most important one he faces.
Schiff told Dana Bash that the Supreme Court needed to move swiftly to reach its decision on presidential immunity. He noted that the high court “moved with great speed” in determining that states could not bar Trump from the primary ballot and said what remained to be seen was whether the Court would move just as swiftly “in rejecting this bogus immunity claim.”
He added that if the Court fails to act quickly, it could push the trial date until after the November election, which Schiff said would be “a terrible decision” for the “interest of justice” because it would deprive voters of “the information they would learn” in the trial while further discrediting the Supreme Court.
