Let us say, and why not, that you have a child, a son, at a local day care. Every morning you drop him off at, hell, let's call it "Little Tykes' Awesome School." You trust that they will make sure nothing bad happens to your son, and you've heard nothing but good things about LTAS. But then one day, you see something on your parents' group chat: one of the teachers has been arrested. You try to tell yourself that it could be any number of things that a teacher has been arrested for, but you're still freaking out. Then it turns out that it's the owner of LTAS who's been arrested. Jeremy Tykes was taken into custody after a parent told police that her daughter said...oh, shit. No, no, this is all rumor, you say. Then you get a link to a news story which says that there are video recordings of Tykes walking little girls into his office. Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck. You tell your boss you gotta go, jump in your car, and go get your son. After you pick him up and get him home, in a safe place, with safe snacks, you ask him if anything happened to him. No, your son says, nothing happened but he played with his friends and wants to watch TV.
After his arrest and arraignment, where he actually gets bond for some reason you can't figure out, Tykes says he wants his trial delayed while he looks for work. He hopes to get another job running a day care or at least working for one. Really, he wants to run the one that he had run already. It's what he's passionate about, he says. Besides, he says through his lawyer, he's totally innocent, and there are no videos of him doing anything to any of the kids, and if some of them say he did something terrible, well, those kids were coached because some of his co-workers were out to get him.
Listen, you know that false allegations have been made in these situations. You know there have been witch hunts that have destroyed careers. You know that, in theory, everyone is innocent until proven guilty in a court. You know all that, and you believe in it. But, still, you fucking well know that that motherfucker shouldn't be anywhere near kids until his innocence is established. Right? And that trial better happen really fucking fast before he gets another day care job and perhaps fucks up the lives of some more children.
See, one thing I keep coming back to with the potential delays in the trial of Donald Trump over his weird use and abuse of classified documents is that we better fucking establish his guilt or innocence before he's allowed near classified documents again. I mean, in seeking an indefinite delay, ideally until after the 2024 election, Trump's lawyers write, "While the Government appears to favor an expedited (and therefore cursory) approach to this case, it cannot point to any exigency or urgency requiring a rapid adjudication. There is no ongoing threat to national security interests nor any concern regarding continued criminal activity."
And then, in a part that sounds like it was dictated by Trump and ordered to be included, they go on, "President Trump is running for President of the United States and is currently the likely Republican Party nominee. This undertaking requires a tremendous amount of time and energy, and that effort will continue until the election on November 5, 2024...[Preparing for trial] requires significant planning and time, making the current schedule untenable and counseling in favor of a continuance."
This needs to be stated plainly: The ongoing threat to national security is that Donald fucking Trump can get his tiny orange paws on more top secret shit and do whatever the fuck he wants with it. Of course this is a national security issue. And, of fucking course, voters need to know that Trump fucked with our national security before they vote because there are still millions of people in this country who are stupid enough to vote for Trump. Even Trump's lawyers recognize this when they say, "[T]here is simply no question any trial of this action during the pendency of a Presidential election will impact both the outcome of that election and, importantly, the ability of the Defendants to obtain a fair trial." The impact on the election is the fucking point. Why shouldn't a conviction on mishandling classified shit not have an impact on an election? Would you say, "Yeah, he was found guilty of fucking kids, but we should totally let him work with kids again"?
Luckily, Special Counsel Jack Smith wasn't having any of it and said, in essence, "Are you assholes serious right now?" As the government writes, "Defendants Trump and Nauta claim unequivocally that they cannot receive a fair trial prior to the conclusion of the next presidential election, urge the Court to withdraw the current scheduling Order, and request that the Court not even consider a new trial date until some unspecified later time. There is no basis in law or fact for proceeding in such an indeterminate and open-ended fashion, and the Defendants provide none."
And it adds, "Finally, the demands of Defendants’ professional schedules do not provide a basis to delay trial in this case. Many indicted defendants have demanding jobs that require a considerable amount of their time and energy, or a significant amount of travel. The Speedy Trial Act contemplates no such factor as a basis for a continuance, and the Court should not indulge it here." Yeah, motherfuckers, everyone's got shit to do and would rather do that than go on trial for something that could put them in prison for years.
But, hey, if Trump's bizarre, self-aggrandizing reasoning actually works, hell, every accused criminal can say, "Yeah, I know I'm accused of murdering a classroom of a children, but I gotta work my shift at the 7-11 so, sorry, Judge, but I'm gonna have to take a raincheck on my trial date. We good?" Or maybe just, "I'm running for president, so I can't be bothered."
(Note: In one draft, I made the owner of the day care Donald Trump, but I realized that MAGA cretins would have no problem putting Trump back in the day care, and they'd likely be proud to have their children molested by him. I don't even think I'm being hyperbolic for effect.)
