What Fani Willis’ two week extension in the Fulton County Donald Trump case really means
A judge has now given DA Fani Willis a two week extension to respond to Donald Trump’s nuisance filing asking for the entire Fulton County criminal case against him to be thrown out. Trump’s filing will not win, nor will it delay anything. It’s just a pointless desperation move. But the court’s timing here is nonetheless interesting.
When the court decided back in March to give Willis a May 1st deadline to respond to this, it was seemingly with the expectation that Willis would have brought her indictments long before May 1st, and that she could respond to this Trump filing afterward. The premise would be that Willis wouldn’t have to prematurely give away anything about the Trump indictment with her response, because she’d have already brought her indictments by then anyway.
Now the court is giving Willis two extra weeks, until May 15th, on account of how the fake electors are suddenly turning on each other and taking immunity deals. And this makes sense. Some of these fake electors may be valuable witnesses against Trump. Of course it’s taken a minute to sort it all out.
But why only two weeks? What’s supposed to happen in this case between now and May 15th? The media recently claimed that Willis has told law enforcement not to expect a Trump indictment until July. This reporting always seemed weird. Why would any prosecutor decide in April to tell law enforcement that they’ll need to be on high alert starting in July? That story never made sense, and it’s made me wonder all along if the “July” reporting was even true.
It’s certainly plausible that the indictment might not come until July. But when the story behind that reporting is as nonsensical as a DA supposedly telling law enforcement to expect an indictment three months in advance (what could possibly be the point of doing so?), that’s a reasonable basis for questioning whether the “July” claim is even real to begin with.
And now we have this judge, who previously seemed to be going out of his way to make sure Willis didn’t have to respond to this nuisance filing until after she indicted Trump, only giving her two more weeks. Not an extension until July. Just two weeks. May 15th.
Maybe this is simply the judge growing impatient. Or maybe this is just a preliminary extension, and Willis will secure a longer extension between now and the 15th. But if it really does end up being just two weeks, it makes you wonder what’s supposed to happen in these two weeks.
Remember, Willis’ criminal cases against Trump and all of these people are 100% done, with the singular exception of whatever these newly cooperating fake electors bring to the table. Once she gets that singular matter sorted, she really only needs a day or two of regular grand jury time to bring her indictments. It’s a mere formality. So this popular notion that she’s having to wait until July because she can’t get grand jury time before then, is simply not based in reality.
If not for that one very weird media story about Willis supposedly telling law enforcement that these indictments will come sometime between July and September (which sounds even more ridiculous the more you think about), we’d all still be expecting these indictments to drop any day now.
In fact there has been previous reporting that Willis will potentially have grand jury access as soon as the week of May 8th. If so, that could result in indictment by the end of that week. And now the courts are giving her an extension until May 15th to respond to Trump’s nuisance filing. It sure doesn’t feel like anyone who’s actually involved with this case thinks “July” has anything to do with it.
We still don’t have enough pieces of the puzzle, or enough context for understanding them, to have any great confidence in understanding what’s really going on here. But that “July” reporting, which sounded suspicious to begin with, seems less likely to be valid than ever.
Remember all that media hype about how the Manhattan DA was going to have to wait another month because the grand jury was going on hiatus? The DA indicted Trump the next day. It was all just something the media invented in order to chase ratings that day. It’s starting to feel like deja vu.
I’m not saying Fani Willis is going to indict Trump by May 15th. Not at all. There are reasons to wait, including if she’s concluded that she needs the Feds to indict Trump for wire fraud first, so she can base her RICO charges on it. I’m just saying we should maybe ignore the “July” thing and admit that we’re back to having no idea when Trump’s Fulton County indictment is really coming.
