WASHINGTON (AP) — A judge has set a March 4 trial date for Donald Trump in the federal case in Washington charging the former president with trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
The decision from U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan denied a defense request to push the trial back until April 2026, about a year and a half after the 2024 election, but also sets it later than the January date proposed by special counsel Jack Smith’s team.
Chutkan made it clear to both sides at the outset of Monday’s status conference that she considered neither proposal acceptable.
“These proposals are obviously very far apart,” she said. “Neither of them is acceptable.”
Trump, a Republican, was charged earlier this month in a four-count indictment with scheming to undo his loss to Joe Biden, a Democrat, in the 2020 election.
The federal election subversion prosecution is one of four criminal cases against Trump. Smith’s team has brought a separate federal case accusing him of illegally retaining classified documents at his Palm Beach, Florida, property, Mar-a-Lago, and refusing to give them back. That case is currently set for trial next May 20.
Trump also faces state cases in New York and Georgia. Manhattan prosecutors have charged him with falsifying business records in connection with a hush money payment to a porn actor who has said she had an extramarital affair with Trump, while prosecutors in Fulton County, Georgia, have charged Trump and 18 others in a racketeering conspiracy aimed at undoing that state’s 2020 election.
Trump, the early front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, surrendered Thursday in that case, posing with a scowling face for the first mug shot in American history of a former U.S. president. He has claimed the investigations of him are politically motivated and are an attempt to damage his chances of winning back the White House.
I can't understand what made January unacceptable. That's 5 months away. What really is the difference between that and 6 weeks later?
On the surface, the massive amount of discovery requires time for the defense to go through. But also this lets the judge show early on that they are not partisan and just going with the prosecutor's proposed timeline.
Wild guess: holidays screw up everyone’s calendar. If you have a set date in early January it’s very likely to miss unless you spend the holidays preparing for it. Smith would, but the court probably has other cases to hear.
How is it possible that they were able to go to court this fast??? I've read cases where suspects who couldn't make bail have sat in jail longer than that waiting for their court date, only to find out the prosecution didn't even have any evidence against them.
That's how they punish the innocent. Better yet is being offered release for time served, or heading back to jail for X years waiting for a trial to prove your innocence