Former President Donald Trump has a very complicated agenda for next year amid a series of federal trials that will begin in a matter of months and an intense presidential campaign.
The calendar, in fact, could not be tighter, as three of the four federal court processes will begin in the middle of key election days that will potentially define the Republican Party’s presidential nominee.
On Monday, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan set March 4 as the start date for the federal trial in Washington, D.C., for alleged election interference by former President Trump. That’s one day before Super Tuesday, one of the most important days of the primaries.
On Super Tuesday, more than a dozen key states, including California, Maine, Texas, North Carolina, Utah and Virginia, are expected to hold their presidential primary elections on March 5.
Judge Chutkan ignored the prosecution (which wanted to set the date in January 2024) as well as rejected the request of Trump’s legal team, which proposed to start the trial in April 2026.
According to an NBC News report, Judge Chutkan said: “Setting a trial date does not depend and should not depend on a defendant’s personal and professional obligations.”
“Mr. Trump, like any defendant will have to make the trial date work, regardless of his schedule,” the federal judge said.
Judge Chutkan looked at the calendar and just randomly picked March 4, 2024 as the trial date, the day before Super Tuesday.
Total coincidence!
What an absolute farce. pic.twitter.com/uWNVULVfWR
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) August 28, 2023
Other busy dates for the former president
However, March 4 and 5 are not the only days where Trump must deal with legal problems and relevant election days.
For example, in the controversial criminal case of Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, for the plot related to porn actress Stormy Daniels and alleged hidden money, the trial is scheduled for March 25. The date coincides with a series of key electoral contests.
Arizona, Florida, Ohio, Kansas and Illinois are scheduled to hold their primaries on March 19. At the same time, Louisiana will do so on March 23 and Wisconsin on April 2.
Also, the trial against Trump and two of his aides in the case of classified documents under the prosecutor Jack Smith will begin on May 20 in Florida. Several states will hold their primaries very close to that date, including Maryland and West Virginia, which will go to the polls on May 14.
Idaho, Kentucky and Oregon will also hold their primaries that week, on May 21, one day after the trial is scheduled to start.
In addition, the dates are still pending for the electoral case in Georgia in which the former president is accused of allegedly trying to reverse the election results in the 2020 elections.
“Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has proposed starting the trial in her 2020 election case against Trump and 18 of his allies on March 4, the same date now selected for the federal election case. It also happens to be one week before Georgia’s primary on March 12,” reported the Daily Wire.
For this case, Trump was officially booked into the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta.
In every case, former President Trump has pleaded not guilty.
Meanwhile, his allies have denounced that there are political motivations behind the accusations, pointing to the political record of prosecutors as evidence and also the scheduled dates for trials in the middle of the Republican election cycle.
