In the 2020 election-related case brought by special counsel Jack Smith, a federal judge in Washington, DC, is deciding on Monday when former President Donald Trump will go on trial.
If this decision is made, it could be the first of the former president’s four ongoing criminal cases to go to trial.
Divergent Trial Timelines: Trump vs. Prosecutors
Prosecutors and Trump’s attorneys have proposed trial dates in the lead-up to the hearing, highlighting the disparities between the two sides’ expectations for how rapidly the pretrial procedure can proceed. These proposed dates fall on either side of the 2024 election.
Smith’s team urged District Judge Tanya Chutkan in court filings to start the proceedings in January 2024, just five months after Trump was charged with four federal counts related to an alleged plot to try to rig the 2020 presidential election in order to retain power, and nearly three years following the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Trump, who earlier this month entered a not guilty plea to the allegations, suggested a trial date of April 2026 in an effort to move the federal trial well past the next election.
The former president, who is presently the front-runner for the Republican nomination, asserted that Smith’s pursuit of him was an effort to undermine his candidacy.
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Judge Addresses Trump Trial Dates and Protective Order
Both of the planned trial dates are too far apart, and Chutkan stated as much at the beginning of the session, adding that neither is acceptable.
This is the second time that Trump’s lawyers and the office of the special counsel have appeared before Chutkan, but the former president is not present.
She issued a protective order in the case at a hearing earlier this month that restricted the use and publication of sensitive discovery evidence and imposed more stringent limitations on what information may be made publicly available than the prosecution had requested.
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