Trump pleads not guilty to charges he tried to overturn 2020 election
Donald Trump was indicted on four counts, including conspiracy charges and obstructing or impeding the certification of the electoral vote.
LEARN MOREPosted: 9:13 p.m. EDT Aug 3, 2023
Ty Cobb, who served as a member of President Donald Trump's legal team from 2017 to 2018, joins Scripps News to talk about the former president's court appearance on Thursday.
Trump pleaded not guilty Thursday to charges including conspiracy and obstructing the certification of the presidential vote.
Next will come the case itself in court — and Cobb says the Justice Department has built a solid foundation.
"I think the only challenges the prosecutors face is moving at a speed where the defendants have no grounds to argue for delay," Cobb said of the case. "The defendants' objective is solely to delay. They don't have factual defense. They don't have witnesses, they don't have documents."
"It's not like they can't say that Pence didn't tell Trump in front of [Trump attorney John] Eastman and others that Eastman himself couldn't provide authority for the scheme Trump wanted," Cobb said. "All the allegations in the indictment will have multiple witnesses. Trump's political defenses so far will all fall flat. He won't win a single motion on the way up to trial with regard to the theory of changing venue or Delaying trial past the 2024 election, or any of his objections with regard to the Justice Department allegedly punishing him — not for what he did, which was unconscionable and unprecedented in American history — but merely because he's Biden's opponent. None of that's going anywhere."
"I think this will be a very detailed case," Cobb said. "The narrative Jack Smith has set out in the indictment that substantially supports the charges, and there will be very little offered in the courtroom in response."
