What we don’t know

We keep seeing more of the pieces of the puzzle being filled in with regard to the criminal cases against Donald Trump. Numerous charges have been filed against Trump. Numerous co-conspirators have been identified in the Trump indictments. Judges are being assigned. We’re even getting preliminary trial dates.

But even as we continue to learn more information along these lines, it’s good to periodically stop and assess what all we still don’t know. For instance, we’re as little as 48 hours away from indictments coming down in Fulton County, and yet we still don’t know what specific charges are being brought against Trump, or who all will be indicted. Based on the partial information that’s surfaced, we can make the educated guess that Trump may be indicted for RICO. And we can guess that people like Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman will likely be indicted alongside him, but we don’t know for sure.

While we’re definitely about to get a whole lot of answers out of Georgia, we may also be about to get more answers from Jack Smith. He just named six co-conspirators in his latest indictment against Trump, and we can expect all of them to be indicted soon if they don’t flip first. But what does “soon” mean? Ask Jack Smith. Just don’t expect an answer.

Jack Smith also reportedly still has a probe going on into the Willard Hotel “command center,” with at least one cooperating witness who was in the room. Will we see charges against the Trump underlings who were part of that plot? Will Trump himself face additional charges?

Jack Smith has also reportedly been targeting Trump for campaigning on the knowingly false claim that he won the 2020 election. Will that result in wire fraud charges against Trump? For that matter we still don’t know if Smith is targeting any current or former members of Congress as part of his Trump 1/6 probe. There are those observers who are certain that Smith will indict every House Republican they don’t like. There are others who are certain that, because it hasn’t happened yet, Smith will never indict anyone in Congress. Neither group has any factual basis for their certainty. The reality is, we just don’t know.

If you want a good guidepost for how close we are to knowing what’s going to happen next and how we can still be surprised as these events unfold, think back to a certain day last month where we were all expecting Jack Smith to indict Trump for 1/6 – and instead Smith brought a superseding indictment against Trump for classified documents that day. There are just that many things in motion. We have a general sense of what’s coming, but the specifics often remain out ahead of us.

So as we move forward into these increasingly productive days, weeks, and months ahead, let’s remember to keep our expectations realistic and enjoy the ride. There’s a certain catharsis in watching justice served against Donald Trump and his criminal co-conspirators. Let’s also remember that, even with as much detail as we now know about all of what’s coming against Trump, we really only know the half of it.