Trump proposes date for trial for subverting 2020 election – in three years

Special counsel Jack Smith has asked for the trial to begin in Washington DC on 2 January 2024

Donald Trump wants his federal trial for allegedly trying to subvert the 2020 presidential election to be postponed until April 2026, according to a court filing.

Lawyers for the former president asked Judge Tanya Chutkan to push the trial back more than two years later than special counsel Jack Smith’s proposed date of January 2024.

Mr Trump is now facing four different trials, two at the federal level, one in Georgia and one in Manhattan, with prosecutors jostling for windows to prosecute the Republican frontrunner.

Earlier this month, Mr Trump pleaded not guilty to four charges in the case: conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction; and conspiracy against the right to vote and to have one’s vote counted.

Last week, the special counsel’s office asked that jury selection in the case start in December and that the trial get underway on 2 January.

Senior Assistant Special Counsel Molly Gaston wrote that it, “would vindicate the public’s strong interest in a speedy trial—an interest guaranteed by the Constitution and federal law in all cases, but of particular significance here, where the defendant, a former president, is charged with conspiring to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election, obstruct the certification of the election results, and discount citizens’ legitimate votes.”

Judge Chutkan is expected to set a date for the trial at a hearing on 28 August, which Mr Trump is not expected or required to attend.

The move comes just days after Mr Trump was indicted in Fulton County, Georgia, for allegedly trying to interfere with presidential election results in the swing state, which was won by Joe Biden and paved his way to the White House.

District Attorney Fani Willis has proposed a 4 March trial date for Mr Trump, which would be just one day is one day before Super Tuesday, in which voters in more than a dozen states cast their primary votes for the GOP presidential nomination.

Mr Trump and his 18 associates who have also been charged in the case have been given until 12pm on Friday 25 August to voluntarily hand themselves in at the Fulton County jail.

Ms Willis has said that would see Mr Trump and the other defendants appear in court for a televised hearing during the week of 5 September.