There seems to be an informal consensus in the legal community that Trump will be indicted in connection with his Mar-a-Lago activities.
If there is a trial, it will be interesting to see if he's indicted in DC, and if the trial actually occurs there.
>>>Where Would The Trial Be Held?
Although Trump has tried to keep this case in the Southern District of Florida (where
Republicans recently routed Democrats in statewide elections), I expect that the indictment would be issued from the District Court for the District of Columbia. The crimes related to the removal and retention of national security documents in violation of the Espionage Act were arguably
committed when Trump removed them from the White House, making D.C. a possible venue for an indictment on those charges.
Trump would almost certainly fear a trial in front of a Washington, D.C., jury even more than he would fear a trial in front of a South Florida jury. Trump received only
5 percent of the vote in the District in 2020, by far his lowest total anywhere. By contrast, he won Florida in 2020.<<<
The gist of the following article from earlier this year is that if Trump is indicted in DC, but only for the three crimes listed in the affidavit/search warrant, the trial would most certainly occur in DC, but if the DOJ also indicts (in DC) on obstruction of justice it might result in the trial being moved to Florida.
>>>As to where to indict, put simply, what started in Washington should stay in Washington. To lay and even some legal observers, it may seem counterintuitive to try a case outside of Florida, where the court-approved search of Mar-a-Lago transpired and where Trump had improperly stashed documents containing some of the country’s most sensitive national security secrets. However, while the case could be indicted in Florida, that option is a non-starter for any responsible federal prosecutor, for reasons we discuss in a moment. . . .
To be sure, some within DOJ will note that indicting Trump for obstruction could add to the low but non-zero risk that a case indicted in DC would be transferred to Florida, a move that could jeopardize the prospects for conviction. Trump’s lawyers will at the very least file a motion to move the case there and to join all the offenses into a single trial in Florida.
They may do that in part because of the added burden it would place on the government. But their main motivation would be their hope that, in Trump’s backyard, where some people seem to think he “
can do no wrong,” at least one or two members of Trump’s base would find their way into the jury box. There, they might ignore the law and nullify other jurors’ votes to convict, however powerful the evidence of guilt and the interests of justice. . . .
To be sure, even the small residual risk of having a trial on an obstruction count transferred to Florida could be eliminated altogether by simply not including obstruction as a formal count and alleging the obstructive conduct within the other charges. That approach would allow prosecutors to introduce at trial the evidence of Trump’s and his team’s obstructive acts to help prove the requisite criminal intent:
willful removal and retention of government records; the
refusal to return defense related information; and the
knowing conversion of government documents (and perhaps also
disobeying a grand jury subpoena).<<<
The Justice Department would be on strongest legal ground to indict former President Trump for MAL crimes in Washington, DC not Florida.
www.justsecurity.org
Only time will tell, of course.
