Judge sets March 4 Date For Historic Donald Trump Trial

Donald Trump’s election subversion conspiracy trial was given a date of March 4, 2024 by a federal judge on Monday, August 28. This puts one of the largest criminal cases in American history during the height of election season.

The election is scheduled for the day before “Super Tuesday,” when voters from more than 12 states will choose the Republican nominee for the 2024 presidential election, with Donald Trump the clear favorite to win the nomination.

The trial of the 45th US president was set to start on January 2 at the request of special counsel Jack Smith. In response, Trump’s legal team suggested April 2026, which would be 17 months after the election.

“Setting a trial date does not depend on the defendant’s professional obligations so Mr Trump will have to make a date work,” US District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan said after admonishing the defense that a two-year delay was too long.

The choice might significantly affect Trump’s chances of winning the White House again.

He demanded that the case be dropped on his social network, Truth Social, labeling Smith “deranged” and accused President Joe Biden of promoting “division, anger, and hatred.”

“It will only get worse because these deranged lunatics know no bounds. Someday, however, Sanity will again prevail,” he posted as Chutkan began hearing arguments at a federal courthouse in Washington.

Trump entered a not guilty plea to the allegations during an early August court appearance, so he was exempt from appearing at the procedural hearing on Monday.

Four criminal indictments have been issued against the 77-year-old this year: two by Smith and one each by state prosecutors in New York and Georgia.

“President Trump is not your average person. He’s incredibly intelligent and he knows the ropes,” his lawyer Alina Habba told “Fox News Sunday” when asked how her client would prepare for his upcoming trials.

“He also knows the facts because he lived them.”

In the case before Chutkan, Trump is charged with conspiring to defraud the United States and conspiring to impede a public event — the joint session of Congress that was attacked on January 6, 2021 by a crowd of Trump supporters.

Trump, the only defendant in this indictment, is also charged with trying to deny American people their right to vote by claiming falsely that he won the 2020 election.

Trump is scheduled to stand trial in Florida in May for allegedly handling top secret government materials as well as in New York later in March on allegations that he paid hush money to a porn star on election night.

In Georgia, racketeering charges have also been brought against Trump and 18 other defendants in connection with their attempts to rig Georgia’s 2020 election.

A date for the start of the trial in the Georgia case has not yet been established by the judge presiding over it.

Judge Chutkan, 61, was chosen by former Democratic president Barack Obama and has been criticized by Trump as being “highly partisan” and “very biased” for having imposed some of the harshest punishments on those involved in the attack on the US Capitol.

Chutkan has a legal experience with Trump as well; in a case from November 2021, she rendered a decision against him and famously stated that “presidents are not kings.”