DA seeks March 4 trial

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis on Wednesday proposed a March 4 trial date for her case accusing former President Donald Trump and others of attempting to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results.

Willis also suggested that Trump and the 18 other defendants within the state-level election interference case ought to be arraigned in the course of the week of Sept. 5, a court filing showed.

The Atlanta-area prosecutor had previously given the defendants until noon on Aug. 25 to voluntarily give up to Georgia authorities.

Trump is prone to challenge the timeline sketched out by Willis’ office. In his other lively criminal cases, Trump’s attorneys have advocated for delaying the trials until after the 2024 presidential election.

Up to now, they’ve not been successful. Trump’s criminal trial in Recent York, on charges of falsifying business records related to hush money payments, is about for March 25. A federal judge in Florida, meanwhile, set a May 20 trial date in special counsel Jack Smith’s case accusing Trump of mishandling classified records.

In a separate federal case charging Trump with election-related crimes, Smith’s office has proposed a Jan. 2 trial start.

“In light of Defendant Donald John Trump’s other criminal and civil matters pending within the courts of our sister sovereigns, the State of Georgia proposes certain deadlines that don’t conflict with these other courts’ already-scheduled hearings and trial dates,” Willis wrote within the filing Wednesday afternoon in Fulton County Superior Court.

Trump has reacted angrily to those dates, claiming that he’s being targeted with bogus charges as a part of a conspiracy to undermine his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.

A Jan. 2 trial date would fall just ahead of the first-in-the-nation nominating contests in Iowa, he wrote last week in a wrathful social media post. Trump’s claim that he’s the victim of “election interference” — the very thing he’s accused of in two separate criminal cases — has featured prominently in his recent campaign messaging.

While there isn’t a evidence of prosecutors charging Trump to hamper his reelection bid, his legal troubles are indeed looming over his campaign schedule and putting a significant financial strain on his political operation. 

4 days before his deadline to give up in Georgia, Trump said he plans to guide a news conference at his golf club in Recent Jersey to unveil a “report” containing allegations of election fraud. Later in August, Trump’s lawyers and Smith’s prosecutors are set to seem for a hearing about how classified information will likely be handled within the federal election case.

Whilst Trump’s focus increasingly centers on his false claims of widespread election from nearly three years ago, his 2024 campaign continues to dominate the Republican primary field.

Quinnipiac University’s latest poll of the first race found 57% support for Trump amongst Republicans and GOP-leaning voters. His top rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, has seen his support shrink to simply 18% of that very same group.