Former President Donald Trump speaks at a fundraiser event for the Alabama GOP in Montgomery, Alabama, Aug. 4, 2023.
Butch Dill | AP
Former President Donald Trump is in search of to sever his criminal election interference case in Georgia from any of his 18 co-defendants who’re demanding that the case proceed quickly to trial, a Thursday court filing showed.
The request in Fulton County Superior Court got here lower than two hours after Trump pleaded not guilty to 13 criminal counts within the sprawling case accusing him of attempting to overturn his loss to President Joe Biden in Georgia’s 2020 election.
Trump earlier Thursday also waived his right to look at his arraignment scheduled for next week.
Defense attorney Steven Sadow argued in the brand new filing that Trump is not going to have enough time to organize if his trial begins Oct. 23, the date that has been set for co-defendant Kenneth Chesebro.
To this point, two co-defendants — Chesebro and pro-Trump attorney Sidney Powell — have requested speedy trials. Only Chesebro has had a trial date set to this point.
There are “substantial adversarial procedural and substantive ‘effects’ President Trump would endure” if he’s held to the identical schedule, Sadow wrote.
“Respectfully, requiring lower than two months preparation time to defend a 98-page indictment, charging 19 defendants, with 41 various charges including a RICO conspiracy charge with 161 Overt Acts, Solicitation of Violation of Oath by Public Officer, False Statements and Writings, Forgery, Influencing Witnesses, Computer Crimes, Conspiracy to Defraud the State, and other offenses would violate President Trump’s federal and state constitutional rights to a good trial and due means of law,” Sadow wrote.
The lawyer also flagged his own potential scheduling conflict. He is about to take part in one other trial starting in late September in federal court in Florida. That trial is anticipated to last as long as three weeks, Sadow wrote.
Fani Willis, the Atlanta district attorney prosecuting the case against Trump, has asked a judge to rule that every one the defendants who’re granted speedy trials should be tried together.
Trump has been charged with 91 total counts in 4 separate criminal cases as he campaigns for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. His lawyers in his two federal cases tried to push off his trial until after the November 2024 election. Judges in each cases rejected those efforts.
