Aug 18 – Former US President Donald Trump has asked a federal judge presiding over special counsel Jack Smith’s criminal election subversion case against him to set the trial date for April 2026.
Trump urged US District Judge Tanya Chutkan in Washington, D.C., in a filing on Thursday evening to reject Smith’s proposal for a January 2024 trial, saying he “seeks a trial calendar more rapid than most no-document misdemeanours, requesting only four months from the beginning of discovery to jury selection.”CNN reported.
“The government’s objective is clear: to deny President Trump and his counsel a fair ability to prepare for trial. The Court should deny the government’s request,” lawyers for the former President wrote.
Instead, they requested that the judge schedule jury selection and the trial for April 2026.
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Chutkan, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, will finally decide when the trial will begin, which she is expected to do before the end of the month.
Trump’s team argued that Smith’s proposed trial timeline would conflict with the other criminal and civil cases in which the former president is a defendant, including the special counsel’s classified documents case, the New York hush money case, and the Georgia election subversion case.
According to CNN, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis wants her trial to begin in March 2024.
The federal judge in the papers case has scheduled the trial for May 2024, while the trial in New York is scheduled for March of next year.
Federal prosecutors requested that the criminal prosecution for 2020 election meddling begin on January 2, 2024, just days before the anniversary of the attack on the US Capitol and the Iowa caucuses.
