CNN
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Former President Donald Trump is asking the federal judge overseeing special counsel Jack Smith’s criminal election subversion case against him to set the trial for April 2026.
In a filing Thursday evening, Trump urged US District Judge Tanya Chutkan in Washington, DC, to reject Smith’s proposal for a January 2024 trial, saying he “seeks a trial calendar more rapid than most no-document misdemeanors, requesting just four months from the beginning of discovery to jury selection.”
“The government’s objective is clear: to deny President Trump and his counsel a fair ability to prepare for trial. The Court should deny the government’s request,” lawyers for the former president wrote.
They asked Chutkan to instead set jury selection and the trial for April 2026.
Among other things, Trump’s team argued that Smith’s proposed timeline for the trial would conflict with the other criminal and civil cases in which the former president is a defendant, including the classified documents case brought by Smith, the hush money case in New York and the Georgia election subversion case.
As CNN previously reported, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis wants her trial to begin in March 2024. The federal judge in the documents case has set that trial for May 2024, while the New York case is set to go to trial in March of next year.
“President Trump must prepare for each of these trials in the coming months. All are independently complex and will require substantial work to defend. Several will likely require President Trump’s presence at some or all trial proceedings,” they wrote.
“Without question, President Trump’s obligation to diligently prepare for this case does not end because of other pending matters,” the attorneys said. “However, the Court may, and should, consider the practical effects these parallel prosecutions will have on President Trump’s ability to meet the extraordinarily brief deadlines the government proposes.”
This story is breaking and will be updated.
Sumber: www.cnn.com
