One can easily conceive a 20-month or longer period with the former president indicted but not yet tried.

It is not hard to imagine a majority of supreme court justices in no great hurry to resolve motions upon which the start of trial could depend. One can easily anticipate motions that, if denied, might go far up the appellate chain. That trial, and its delaying pre-trial motions, were incalculably less complex than Trump’s would be. It is already too late for all appeals from any such conviction to be exhausted by that date, but the key to holding the chief conspirator accountable is a jury verdict of guilt.Ĭonsider this: the trial of insurrectionist Guy Reffitt occurred 13 months after his original indictment. Hence, the goal must be to secure a conviction before November 2024, and in any event, no later than 20 January 2025, when the next presidential term begins. Second, that if any of the likely Republican nominees wins, the next administration will be one that is eager to scrap any prosecution of the last. First, that Trump will run in 2024 and could win. Any calculation of how to proceed must start with two pessimistic premises. In these circumstances, prudence counsels running the clock backwards to set clear benchmarks for moving forward. Shakespeare’s Brutus had it right when he said, in Julius Caesar: “We must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures.” And the steps being taken at his behest even now in battleground states to replace 2020’s failure with 2024’s success redouble the urgency. The former president’s insistence that he has nothing to be remorseful about (other than not marching to the Capitol) makes that debate seem academic.

Indeed, a moving target who gives every indication that he plans to strike again must trigger a different cost-benefit calculus in the inevitable debates both within and outside the justice department about when enough proof has been gathered to indict responsibly – and when it would be a dereliction of duty to delay further.

Time is of the essence in bringing his case to indictment. On 26 July, the Washington Post broke news that the justice department’s investigation is focused on Donald Trump himself. The attorney general, Merrick Garland, knows that the fish always rots from the head.

In no great hurry