Today is Tuesday, May 23, 2023. Today a New York judge has set a trial date of March 25, 2024, for the criminal case against former “commander-in-grief” Donald Dumpf, which will set up a media spectacle, potentially, in the middle of the Republican presidential primary season. This new development is reported in an online CNN article by Lauren del Valle, Kara Scannell, and Jeremy Herb entitled “Donald Trump criminal case is set for March 2024; judge informs Trump what he can’t say about hush money case.”

The trial date was set during a brief hearing today in which Judge Juan Merchan read the defendant, Dumpf, an order on what he can and cannot say publicly about the case and evidence his legal team will get from prosecutors to prepare for trial.

For this court date, Dumpf had no desire to appear in person at the court, so he appeared remotely via video feed so the judge could communicate with him in open court.

During the hearing, Dumpf could be seen speaking and gesturing to his attorney Todd Blanche seated next to him on the screen, but his audio was not audible. At times he sat back with his arms crossed, a typical gesture in the demagogue’s body language arsenal. The former president was uncharacteristically nonverbal during his appearance in which he confirmed that he had a copy of the protective order for the case. “Yes, I do,” he said.

Dumpf’s attorney said that the former president remains concerned that the order infringes on his First Amendment rights. Here the judge and the lawyer for Dumpf got into a dispute about what the former president could say or do. The judge told Blanche that “It is certainly not my intention in any way to impede Mr. Trump’s ability to campaign for president of the United States.” Ugh!

Again, Merchan said, “He is free to defend himself against these charges. He is free to campaign.” But he indicated, “He is free to do just about anything that does not violate the specific terms of the protective order.”

The judge cautioned the attorneys that Dumpf’s violation of the order could result in sanctions. Of course, his former lawyer Michael Cohen weighed in on the likelihood of Dumpf ever shutting his big fat mouth even after he was warned of being sanctioned by the court. Cohen said his former boss would never be able to shut his mouth even in this situation since he is “like a petulant child.” Here a finding of contempt could be meted out if Dumpf decides to rant about the charges against him on his social media platform or wherever.

Defense motions are now due by August 29 and prosecutors must respond by October 10.

The next hearing is now scheduled for January 4, 2024.

As we all know, the former president repeatedly made negative public comments and social media posts about the district attorney, potential trial witnesses, and the judge in this case. Prosecutors cited some of Dumpf’s “Truth” Social posts in their request for a protective order.

Dumpf and his legal team can still talk about the case publicly because there is no gag order in effect. The protective order as it stands specifically restricts their public discussion and dissemination of case material given to the defense during the discovery process.

Now I heard that Dumpf was very agitated when he was told the details of the protective order by the judge by someone on MSNBC who was in the courtroom during his video appearance. He was probably not expecting the case to go this far and that he would actually be charged with any crime since he’s definitely above the law!

Hours after the hearing, the scowling former president took his case directly to his site Truth Social in which he complained about how it was “very unfair” that the judge had so boldly “violated” his First Amendment rights, which is what his lawyer expressly mentioned to Judge Merchan. The wanna-be dictator railed how the court date, March 25th, is stuck in the middle of the repugnican primary season. Then he fucking went on a tear about the “Radical Left Democrats” who wanted this court date set in the middle of the primary season so as to bedevil him with such inconsequential distractions like attending a criminal case against him in New York. The whiner would have complained anyway if the date were scheduled sooner, but here he and his lawyers have a full 10 months to prepare their defense. This should be enough time to get ready for their court date set for next March. Get used to it, Mr. Dumpf!

Now we have some advance hints that some of Dumpf’s close allies expect him to be indicted a second time by special counsel Jack Smith who has been investigating the mishandled classified documents at Dumpf’s Palm Beach resort Mar-a-Lago. This is reported in The Wall Street Journal where every employee at Dumpf’s Florida home have been interviewed by the prosecutor’s team. Last month, it emerged that Smith had uncovered “significant” evidence that the ex-president had obstructed justice. And yesterday, The Guardian reported that Dumpf attorney Evan Corcoran had handed over dozens of pages of notes, which showed, among other things, that Corcoran advised Dumpf against retaining any government documents after his May subpoena was issued.

Thus things are really heating up for the former commander-in-chief and not in a good way at all.

So let’s see what happens in the next several months. It could be a hot summer for all the wrong reasons.

Tomorrow Elliot and I are seeing The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window starring the gifted Oscar Isaac and Rachel Brosnahan (she from The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Amazon Prime series) at the James Earl Jones Theatre, by the equally gifted playwright Lorraine Hansberry. The play runs close to three hours and then we will have dinner in the theater district. So I’m not sure I will post here tomorrow. It all depends on when we get home.

So have a good Wednesday then.

Stay safe and be well.