Trump, drawing more criticism on the right, could slow-walk the trial

The Wall Street Journal editorial page calls him "The Self-Destructive Donald Trump."

While taking shots at the Justice Department’s "misguided use of prosecutorial power," the conservative page says: "If Mr. Trump is the GOP nominee, he is unlikely to defeat Joe Biden. But if he did win, the document fiasco is what a second term would be like. He wouldn’t be able to deliver the conservative policy victories that Republicans want because he can’t control himself. He’d be preoccupied with grievance and what he calls ‘retribution.’ The best people won’t work for him because they see how he mistreated so many loyalists in the first term."

What’s more, Trump won’t "own the libs," the libs will own him.

This is a barometer of how some conservatives – including rival candidates – are shifting their stance on the Trump indictment. Since it was unsealed, they have been more critical, a bit harsher, even as they utter the ritual incantations about the weaponized DOJ, and the double standard involving Biden and the Clintons.

TRUMP, AFTER ARRAIGNMENT, CALLS HIS INDICTMENT A DAY ‘THAT WILL GO DOWN IN INFAMY’

They are hardly a majority. A good chunk of the GOP remains loyal to Trump and his argument that he is being persecuted by the Biden administration.

But given that Republican criticism of Trump was until recently verboten, this is a striking shift in the political landscape.

Mike Pence, for instance, told the Journal: "Having read the indictment, these are very serious allegations. And I can’t defend what is alleged."

HOW THE TRUMP INDICTMENT PUTS OUR COUNTRY ON TRIAL

Ron DeSantis said he would have been "court-martialed" if he had done this while in the Navy.

Nikki Haley said that if the indictment is true, "President Trump was incredibly reckless with our national security… I’m a military spouse. My husband’s about to deploy this weekend. This puts all of our military men and women in danger."

And yet the next day, Haley told a radio interviewer that if elected she’d be "inclined" to pardon Trump. So much for being incredibly reckless.

Meanwhile, Jack Smith may be asking for a speedy trial, but legal experts are predicting that the Trump team will find ways to slow things down, perhaps even though the next election.

At that point, the thinking goes, Trump might be back in the White House and could order Justice to shut down the prosecution. Or another Republican could be president and pardon him.

Trump’s lawyers could ask that the case be thrown out. They could also try to exclude the notes from his lawyer, Evan Corcoran, that quote the former president as saying maybe they should just tell the National Archives they didn’t have any more classified documents, which wasn’t true. (A court pierced attorney-client privilege in ordering him to testify.) And then there are appeals.

In a setback for DOJ, Trump-appointed judge Aileen Cannon was randomly selected to hear the Florida case. She bizarrely tried to name a special master during the probe, and was rebuked by an appeals court. But it would mean more delays if the prosecution tried to get her booted.

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And there is also the possibility that Trump could just win the case at trial, or get a hung jury.

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Trump may be experiencing an unusual degree of bad-mouthing by some on the right. But this is the umpteenth time the media have predicted the walls are closing in on him, and so far he’s always skated.