Donald Trump is still complaining.
On Truth Social, which is his alternative social media site, he complained this weekend about the timing — near the holidays — of recent filings from the federal prosecution team of Special Counsel Jack Smith at the Justice Department, who is leading two cases against the ex-president. The specific case giving rise to the filings Trump was apparently referencing covers his attempts after the last presidential race to stay in power despite losing. Just like there is no serious evidence of political intent underlying the charges that Trump faces, there’s also no clear indication of some kind of intention from the prosecutor of disrupting the holiday season specifically, though Trump was specific.
“They had 3 years to file—Now I get their rushed and bad papers on New Year’s Eve. ELECTION INTERFERENCE!” he wrote.
The idea is that there was some undue delay in bringing charges against Trump that is somehow indicative of an intent to affect the presidential election that will take place next year. Again, there’s no specific evidence to support this contention either. In fact, all of the investigations that have produced criminal charges against Trump were known publicly before he confirmed his latest campaign, and indications of progress in these probes were relatively consistent throughout this period. It’s simply the nature of the justice system in the United States that sometimes things take awhile to get where they’re going.
Smith’s criminal case against Trump over his election-targeting plots is currently before a court of appeals in Washington, D.C. Trump’s political corner has tried to make a big deal out of the U.S. Supreme Court rejecting a push from Smith for intervention before that mid-level appeals process concludes in order to keep things moving more quickly, but there’s really no clear indication the development was much more than a procedural decision by that high court.
