Despite his false claim he would be indicted last week, Donald Trump isn’t going to see any indictment any time soon – at least not by New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s grand jury investigating his role in the hush money payoff to Stormy Daniels.
The grand jury will be on hiatus from the Trump case for the next month, according to Politico, which says the break was previously planned.
Jurors are not expected to hear any evidence in the case this week or next week, and will break for the Passover holiday next Thursday. They will be off for the following two weeks, Politico’s source says, citing a schedule drawn up in January.
“There is no official deadline for bringing an indictment against Trump, although there were indications in recent weeks that the grand jury’s activity was nearing a vote, particularly when prosecutors offered Trump the chance to testify before the panel. That is typically one of the final steps of a criminal investigation,” Politico notes.
There is one caveat to the “no official deadline” claim. Journalist Marcy Wheeler notes, if the grand jury “were to charge witness tampering in conjunction with the Costello [communications] to [Michael] Cohen, they would create a hard deadline before the end of April.”
Costello is Robert Costello, who Trump asked the grand jury to interview, hoping he would refute his longtime former attorney’s testimony.
Of course, anything is possible and DA Bragg could call the grand jury into session at any time.
There is also the unlikely possibility that he will not ask them to vote on an indictment in the case. They could also vote against indicting Trump.