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WASHINGTON – Special counsel Jack Smith proposed a Jan. 2 trial date Thursday for Donald Trump on charges that he tried to steal the 2020 election, a speedy timetable that the former president’s attorneys are expected to try and delay.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan will ultimately set the schedule for the trial, which Smith would like to open less than two weeks before the Jan. 15 Iowa caucuses and the start of the 2024 Republican presidential race.
In his motion, Smith estimated that the trial itself would take four-to-six weeks before going to a jury.
“A January 2, 2024, trial date represents an appropriately speedy trial in the public interest and in the interests of justice, while affording the defendant time to prepare his defense and raise pre-trial legal issues with the Court,” Smith’s office said in its motion.
Under the proposed schedule, jury selection for Trump’s election trial would begin on Dec. 11.
The Trump campaign denounced the Jan. 2 proposal, saying in a statement that prosecutors “are blatantly playing political games, proving even further that they are overtly committing election interference because they know that President Trump is the leading candidate in the race to win the White House.”
This is one of – at least – three criminal trials that Trump is looking during the 2024 election year.
A state court in New York has scheduled a March trial on charges against Trump involving hush money payments.
A federal judge in Florida has set a May trial on charges that Trump obstructed justice by hiding subpoeanaed classified documents.
In addition, a grand jury in Atlanta may decide this month whether to charge with Trump with a conspiracy to overturn President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory in the state of Georgia.
Trump has denounced all of these investigations as attempts to interfere with his 2024 election bid. His lawyers have indicated they will seek to delay all of these trials until after the presidential election itself, which is Nov. 5, 2024.
The proposed date of Jan. 2 also comes less than a week before the third anniversary of the insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021, the event at the heart of the federal conspiracy charges against Trump.
Attorneys have a hearing in the case on Friday over Smith’s request for a protective order against Trump, restricting what the president can say publicly about the witnesses and evidence against him.
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