Defense tactics used by Donald Trump include putting obstacles in the way of court proceedings to delay proceedings. The former president’s attorneys pulled out the manual and, arguing that the case was complex, requested that the federal trial of Trump’s alleged attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election begin in April 2026, 18 months after the 2024 election. to take place the next resident of the White House.
Special Counsel Jack Smith, assigned by the Department of Justice to oversee the case, had suggested the first week of January as the date for jury selection and the start of the trial. In the Washington case, which was Trump’s third indictment this year (a fourth came this week alleging election interference in the state of Georgia), the prosecutor referred to six other unidentified co-conspirators but chose to just go after Trump to speed up the process.
The indictment charges Trump with four crimes: witness tampering, conspiracy to defraud the United States, efforts to obstruct the voting certification process, and conspiracy to violate civil rights. Trump claims the 2020 election was stolen from him. The prosecutor is not charging him for these baseless allegations, but for the actions he took to change the outcome and prevent Joe Biden’s victory from being announced.
It is up to Judge Tanya S. Chutkan to decide the schedule once the two parties’ petitions have been reviewed. Trump’s lawyers have a compelling case for rejecting such a rapid acceleration of the process as suggested by the special counsel. In the brief requesting a 2026 trial date, they emphasize the complexity of the case and the vast amount of documents in the indictment that they do not yet have access to.
According to Trump’s legal team, the case materials contained 8.5 terabytes of information totaling 11.5 million pages. If stacked, they would form a 5,000-foot (roughly 1,500-meter) tower of paper. The order even includes a graphic showing that the height of the paperwork would be more than fifteen times the height of the Statue of Liberty in New York and more than eight times the height of the Washington Monument, the tallest building in the federal capital. with nearly a million pages left.”
The lawyers add that after receiving the link, they spent two days downloading the documentation and still haven’t finished. “Even if we could begin reviewing the documents today, we would need to continue at a pace of 99,762 pages per day to complete the government’s first production by the proposed date for jury selection. This is the entirety of Tolstoy’s War and Peace, front to back, 78 times a day, every day, from now until jury selection,” they explained.
In addition to the printed text, there are “audio recordings, image files from telephones and electronic devices, and other materials that require extensive and painstaking review,” the brief said.
Trump’s attorneys argue that it is common to set a trial calendar based on the size and scope of the indictments and the complexity of the case. “The government rejects this sensible approach. Instead, it seeks a faster trial than most undocumented crimes, requiring just four months from discovery to jury selection. The government’s goal is clear: to deprive Trump and his lawyers of the opportunity to prepare for the trial.”
Trump’s packed agenda
Instead, Trump’s lawyers are proposing a detailed timetable with more than two and a half years of procedural steps that will not affect the final stages of the 2024 presidential campaign, with the former president currently the front runner for the Republican Party nomination. This alternate timeline would result in a trial in April 2026.
Lawyers also pointed to the former president’s busy agenda, who faces multiple indictments and lawsuits to defend his schedule against the prosecutor’s proposed one. Trump is currently facing two civil lawsuits, one in the New York state court with a six-week trial scheduled to begin October 2, 2023, and another in the Southern District of New York with a two-week trial scheduled to begin January 15. 2024
Then, according to the current schedule, would come a 2016 presidential election falsification trial involving hush money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels over an alleged extramarital affair. This forms the basis of the first criminal case in which Trump has been charged, and he is scheduled to appear in a New York state court for a five-week trial beginning March 25, 2024.
Next on the hypothetical timeline would be the criminal case against Trump in Georgia for attempting to alter that state’s 2020 election results. The former president was indicted on those allegations this week and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has requested a hearing date for March 4, 2024, although the date has not yet been set by the judge.
The criminal case for crimes against the Espionage Act and obstruction of justice for illegally storing classified material at his home in Mar-a-Lago, Florida following his departure from the White House is scheduled to begin in the Southern District of Florida on May 20, 2024 .
At the top of Trump’s legal calendar is his political calendar, which his attorneys have not referred to. The Republican Party primary begins on January 15 and will last through the first half of 2024, culminating in the July convention, where a presidential nominee will be named. The White House election is on November 5, 2024, with the victor’s inauguration on January 20, 2025. Should Trump be elected for a second term, he could either appoint a like-minded prosecutor to dismiss the federal charges, or the power of pardons apply to himself.
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