GEORGIA: The trial of former U.S. President Donald Trump on charges of plotting to overturn the 2020 presidential election will be held next March, a federal judge ruled.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is presiding over the case, set the high-profile trial for March 4, a day before Super Tuesday when voters in 15 states go to the polls to pick their party nominees for the 2024 presidential election.
Trump is currently the favorite to win the Republican nomination.
Prosecutors had wanted to begin the trial on January 2, while the Trump defense team sought to put it off until April 2026, more than two years after the election.
Chutkan rejected both proposed dates as “unacceptable.” However, the trial date she set could complicate Trump’s presidential campaign and legal battles on multiple fronts.
Not only will it coincide with the start of the presidential primary season, but it will also likely clash with other court proceedings involving him and his associates.
In the southern U.S. state of Georgia, where Trump and 18 others were recently indicted for conspiring to overturn the election outcome there, prosecutors have proposed a March 4 trial date. A judge has yet to set a date.
Three weeks later on March 25, Trump is scheduled to go on trial in New York in connection with a hush money payment to an adult movie start ahead of the 2016 presidential election.
And on May 20, he’ll face a jury in Florida, where he was charged in June with illegally retaining classified documents after he left office and hiding them from investigators.
For Trump’s federal election interference trial to proceed, the dates of his state trials in New York and Georgia would have to be adjusted, according to legal experts.
“It would seem that something has to give in trials expected to last weeks,” Jonathan Turley, a law professor at The George Washington University, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Chutkan said she had spoken with the New York judge who is overseeing the hush money case. The Manhattan prosecutor has previously signaled an openness to change the trial date.
(VOA)
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