Judge Chutkan Hands Trump A Major Defeat With March 4 Trial Date

Trump didn’t get his asked for a delay until 2026. The former president didn’t get his federal 1/6 trial delayed until after the 2024 election. Instead, Trump will be on trial on March 4, 2024.

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NBC News reported:

It’s only two months distant from what the special counsel had proposed, which was January of 2024, and the judge said that was too aggressive. But she really didn’t give the Trump team much of anything, and they didn’t help themselves at this hearing with some rather bombastic comments about the enormity of the case. She told them right away, look, April of 2026 was not happening, that was not reasonable in her view. It was way too far from the actual point of the alleged crimes, witnesses could lose their memories. She said, give me a reasonable timeframe that you need to process all the discovery in this case, and they just wouldn’t do it. They wouldn’t get off the April 2026 date that they were proposing. It’s pretty clear they wanted to make a record so they could appeal this question down the line. But the judge said that it’s in the interest of justice and in the public interest to get this case to trial.

The prosecution, Molly Gaston had a really interesting thing to say about that. She stood up after the defense had made their arguments for delay and she said, this defendant is accused of historic crimes and she said there’s an incredibly strong public interest in a jury’s prompt consideration of those claims in open court. That’s essentially what the judge decided as well, that the public has a right to hear this case before the election, and it’s not just the defendant’s right to a speedy trial, it’s the public’s right to a speedy trial. She said the idea that the defense couldn’t process all the discovery, 12.8 million documents, really wasn’t persuasive to her and she agreed with the prosecution’s argument that a lot of this evidence had been made available by the committee that investigated the matter. She has set a March 4, 2024 trial date, and that’s the day jury selection would begin.

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Republican voters have made it clear that they they don’t care about the indictments. They believe Trump’s claims that this is a witch hunt, so it doesn’t matter if the trial takes place before the Iowa caucuses or Super Tuesday, it likely will not impact the outcome of the Republican primary.

Where this ruling is devastating for Trump is the general election. If Trump is convicted of crimes related to his attempted coup, the conviction could be used as a legal argument to disqualify him from the 2024 ballot.

Not only does Trump not get the delay he was seeking, but if he gets convicted, he could get tossed off the ballot in key states in 2024.

The ruling is a disaster for Trump and a victory for the American people.

Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and  Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association