I Respectfully Submit

It's not clear, to me, whether denying the motion to quash is a "final ruling," or would require an interlocutory appeal procedure.

Assuming that this law is not firmly established, they can still burn a year on whether their method of appeal was ok.

— Andrew Fleischman (@ASFleischman) March 20, 2023

That this argument assumes facts not in evidence.

You couldn't try this tactic in a run-of-the-mill case. But in a regular case, the DA's office wouldn't go out of its way to drag its feet and talk to the press.

— Andrew Fleischman (@ASFleischman) March 20, 2023

No, it's not a "run of the mill" case. But "smart lawyering"? I submit lawyter Fleischman hasn't read the pleading.

And it is a pleading, not a brief.  But it's a brief disguised as a pleading, and the first question is:  does it state grounds upon which relief can be granted?  I think the short answer is: "No."  I think the long answer is:  "Hell, no."

Here's the crux of the biscuit:

Trump hired some excellent Georgia lawyers who thought of a clever way to gum up the works.

Now, maybe the Supreme Court of Georgia would summarily dismiss their appeal. But this is the President. A high stakes case. Probably reason to write a full opinion. Which takes time.

— Andrew Fleischman (@ASFleischman) March 20, 2023

Yes, Trump is an ex-POTUS. So?  Does that give him special privilege, or position?  Not before the law.  This may be a high-stakes case, but why would the Georgia Supreme Court want to weigh in on the propriety of the use of a special grand jury to prepare a report to be reviewed by a regular grand jury with authority to issue criminal indictments in Georgia?  I think the legal point is a quibble, at best.  High stakes? Not in this motion.

Which, as I say, I don't think lawyer Fleischman has read.  (I use "lawyer" respectfully, not in a pejorative sense.  I recognize his special knowledge, is all.)  There is, alone, the question of Trump's standing to complain about this process.  It seems to be about him, but is it?  And, as I said earlier, does Trump have standing to complain about the failings of the SGJ he alleges harmed the witnesses individually? I don't think that's a "high stakes" question at all.

And it could be the Georgia courts treat this as an interlocutory matter best brought up after trial.  It certainly preserves an objection (or two).  But I'm not sure it states anything the court has to rule on before the regular grand jury finishes its work, or before Trump is tried (if he is).  Much of the 52 pages of actual pleading is legal whinging about minor matters of procedure or nomenclature which have no real effect on the work of the SGJ or the validity of same under Georgia law.

The "cleverness" of Trump's lawyers is to argue black is white, unless black being black is of benefit to their client's status as....what, exactly?  A potential criminal defendant?  A person who was not called as a witness, but presumes they were talking about him?  A person whose name the Fulton County DA had in her mouth?

I'm still unclear about the standing issue at this point.  I think any appeal falls on that question, as well as the question of ripeness.  And it doesn't have to be a "high stakes case" if that's how the courts handle it, at this point.

OCICBW.  I mean, what do I know?  I wouldn't presume that this motion fails on its own lack of merits (it should, IMHLO; but....).  I just don't presume it succeeds because "courts" and "appellate process" and "Former POTUS."  The federal courts set the standard for that in the MAL case on Trump's documents claim; and they had appealable issues and a judge to slam, hard.  They also had opinions to write, which they did rather quickly, almost as if they were cognizant of the circumstances more than the status of one of the parties.

This is just a question of whether and when a grand jury finishes its work.  I don't really see any "high stakes" until they do.  Although Trump is trying hard to create them:

One surprising argument in Trump’s Georgia filing: The suggestion that the special grand jury’s supervising judge, Robert McBurney, acted improperly.

It’s a baseless claim. I observed McBurney in that role for months. Hard to understate how excellent he is as a judge & jurist. https://t.co/6nxdQJjxhD

— Anna Bower (@AnnaBower) March 20, 2023

And here's the problem with that "strategy":

But they've been doing this for years. The point is not to make a factual claim. It's to undermine the very notion that Trump and his people could ever be "fairly" held to account. So you have to undermine judges serially.

Flynn made Emmet Sullivan into a Deep State plant! https://t.co/SKc5LIBusq

— emptywheel (@emptywheel) March 20, 2023

This is akin to the comfort courts are developing with setting aside attorney-client privilege in cases involving Trump.  I don't mean the courts are doing so cavalierly, but they are much more open to the arguments than might have been true in the past (or might still be true for other defendants).  Whatever "advantage" Trump had in "the very notion that Trump and his people could ever be 'fairly' held to account," the courts, by and large, are on to this shtick.  And are none too impressed with it.

So, sure, a case involving a former POTUS should be "high stakes."  But repetition has lowered that standard; the "shock value" just isn't there anymore.  Baseless claims that sound "serious" because made by a former POTUS, more and more look like just "baseless claims." And there is nothing a court hates more than a baseless claim.

Courts are judicious and reasoned.  I don't mean to imply they have all swung the pendulum against Trump as a matter of course.  I just mean the argument that these claims are baseless and unworthy of regard will be listened to by courts who might once have pondered the "unprecedented" nature of criminal investigations of a former POTUS and given great weight to defensive postures against those investigations.

Trump's worn out his welcome, in other words.  Blood is in the water.  Judges are not sharks circling for prey, but neither are they unaware of what's going on.  Just because you try to gum up the legal works doesn't mean the wheels will always respond by ceasing to grind.  There is precedent for dismissing Trump's delaying tactics as merely delaying tactics.  With that precedent in place, it's less dangerous, from a judicial point of view, to find the same tactics in the case before the instant court are equally to be discharged as frivolous.

It's kind of like a leak in a levee.  The leak doesn't start with a pinhole you can put a finger in.  It starts when the levee is undermined and overwhelmed, and conditions change all at once.  Once upon a time courts accepted racist claims as legally valid.  And then, after much effort at change, all at once, they didn't.  That's a very macro example of what I'm getting at.  The tide has turned against Trump's worn out, over-used tactics.  They are likely to be less, and less, and less, effective, going forward.  "High stakes," or not.

(I'm going to add here something I'd forgotten about the SGJ:  it recommended indictments against witnesses who allegedly lied to the SGJ.  That seems to be the basis for Trump's complaint about the witnesses not knowing the ground rules of the SGJ.  Which is both on its face ludicrous (why did you think you were under oath?) and back to the issue of standing:  who is Trump to raise this issue on behalf of those witnesses?  I really think that Motion to Quash is as going to hold back an indictment the way a tissue would hold back a rampaging linebacker,)