Special counsel Jack Smith proposes Jan. 2 trial date for Trump on charges of overturning election
Special counsel Jack Smith Thursday asked a judge to set a Jan. 2 trial date for former President Donald Trump on charges he tried to overturn his loss in the 2020 election.
The bulldog prosecutor says jury selection in the case, which includes Trump’s alleged role in the bloody Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, should start in December.
Smith estimated the trial itself should take between four and six weeks in a filing requested by U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan.
“A January 2 trial date would vindicate the public’s strong interest in a speedy trial,” prosecutors wrote in a filing.
“(It’s) of particular significance here, where the defendant, a former president, is charged with conspiring to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election.”
Trump’s defense team is likely to call for a much later trial date, most likely after the November 2024 presidential election. He has claimed that any trial before the election would be unfair to him as candidate to return to the White House.
The former president has until next week to make his case to Chutkan, who has said she will set a trial date at an Aug. 28 preliminary hearing.
Trump pleaded not guilty last week to a four-count indictment on conspiring to defraud the U.S., to obstruct official proceedings and to deprive people of their rights, a charge often used in civil rights cases.
Smith’s proposed trial date and a schedule for pretrial motions is considered extremely aggressive.
It would mean Trump would be facing trial before the third anniversary of the infamous Jan. 6 attack in which an army of his loyal supporters sought to prevent Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s election win.
“It is difficult to imagine a public interest stronger than this case in which the defendant – the former President of the United States – is charged with three criminal conspiracies intended to … disenfranchise voters,” prosecutors wrote.
Besides the Jan. 6 case, Trump faces a May trial in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case. He is accused of stashing hundreds of secret documents after leaving office and defying federal efforts to get them back.
Prosecutors in Atlanta’s Fulton County reportedly plan to ask a grand jury there to charge Trump in a sprawling election interference conspiracy as soon as next week.
Trump also faces a March trial in a Manhattan court on charges related to hush money payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels.
Trump faces a second civil rape trial in New York in January stemming from a jury’s finding that he sexually assaulted writer E. Jean Carroll. It was not immediately clear if that case might need to be moved if the Jan. 6 case is taking place at the same time.