By ERIC TUCKER, LINDSAY WHITEHURST and MICHAEL KUNZELMAN (Related Press)
WASHINGTON (AP) — A decide on Monday set a March 4, 2024, trial date for Donald Trump within the federal case in Washington charging the previous president with attempting to overturn the outcomes of the 2020 election, rejecting a protection request to push again the case by years.
U.S. District Choose Tanya Chutkan rebuffed claims by Trump’s attorneys that an April 2026 trial date was essential to account for the massive quantity of proof they are saying they’re reviewing and to arrange for what they contend is a novel and unprecedented prosecution. However she agreed to postpone the trial barely past the January 2024 date proposed by particular counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution staff.
“The general public has a proper to a immediate and environment friendly decision of this matter,” Chutkan mentioned.
If the present date holds, it might symbolize a setback to Trump’s efforts to push the case again till properly after the 2024 presidential election, a contest during which he’s the early front-runner for the Republican nomination.
The March 2024 date would additionally guarantee a blockbuster trial within the nation’s capital within the warmth of the GOP presidential nominating calendar, forcing Trump to juggle marketing campaign and courtroom appearances and coming the day earlier than Tremendous Tuesday — a vital voting day when greater than a dozen states will maintain primaries and when the most important variety of delegates are up for grabs.
“I wish to notice right here that setting a trial date doesn’t rely and shouldn’t rely upon the defendant’s private or skilled obligations,” Chutkan mentioned.
Chutkan has up to now appeared cool to Trump’s efforts to delay the case but in addition involved by social media feedback he’s made exterior courtroom. This month, she warned Trump’s authorized staff that there have been limits on what he can say publicly about proof within the investigation. She reiterated her intention Monday for Trump to be “handled with no kind of deference than any defendant could be handled.”
The Washington case is one in every of 4 prosecutions Trump is dealing with. A March 4 trial would happen simply weeks earlier than a scheduled New York trial in a case charging him in reference to a hush cash fee to a porn actress. In the meantime in Atlanta on Monday, the place Trump and 18 others have been charged with attempting to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia, former White Home chief of employees Mark Meadows argued to attempt to get the costs in opposition to him transferred from state courtroom to federal courtroom.
The setting of the trial date got here regardless of robust objections from Trump lawyer John Lauro. He mentioned protection legal professionals had obtained an infinite trove of information from Smith’s staff — a prosecutor put the overall at greater than 12 million pages and recordsdata — and mentioned the case involved novel authorized points that will require important time to kind out.
“This is among the most original instances from a authorized perspective ever introduced within the historical past of america. Ever,” Lauro mentioned, calling it an “monumental, overwhelming job” to evaluation such a “gargantuan” quantity of proof.
Prosecutor Molly Gaston countered that the general public had an “exceedingly” robust curiosity in transferring the case ahead to trial and mentioned that the essential allegations within the indictment have lengthy been identified to the protection. Trump, she famous, is accused of “trying to overturn an election and disenfranchise thousands and thousands.”
“There’s an extremely robust public curiosity in a jury’s full consideration of these claims in open courtroom,” Gaston mentioned.
Trump, a Republican, was charged this month in a four-count indictment with scheming to undo his loss to Democrat Joe Biden within the 2020 election.
Smith’s staff has introduced a separate federal case accusing him of illegally retaining categorized paperwork at his Palm Seaside, Florida, property, Mar-a-Lago, and refusing to offer them again. That case is at the moment set for trial subsequent Could 20.
Trump additionally faces the state instances in New York and Georgia. A spokesperson for New York’s state courtroom system, Lucian Chalfen, mentioned Chutkan just lately spoke with the decide in Trump’s Manhattan felony case, Juan Manuel Merchan, about their respective trials forward. Chalfen mentioned no resolution has been made relating to suspending or rescheduling the Manhattan trial, which is to start March 25, 2024.
Trump surrendered Thursday within the Georgia case, posing with a scowl for the primary mug shot in American historical past of a former U.S. president. He has claimed the investigations of him are politically motivated makes an attempt to wreck his possibilities of profitable again the White Home.
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Related Press writers Jill Colvin and Michael R. Sisak contributed to this report.
Observe the AP’s protection of former President Donald Trump at https://apnews.com/hub/donald-trump.