Former President Donald Trump will spend super Tuesday in a Washington, D.C. courtroom, after the federal judge overseeing the case on Trump's attempts to overturn the 2020 election set his trial to start the day before 15 states hold their primary for the 2024 election.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan on Monday refused to give Trump’s lawyers the astounding two-year delay they requested, calling their slowdown unacceptable and choosing to start the trial just as the 2024 primaries heat up. But she also didn't completely give in to the Department of Justice's request to begin the trial in the early days of January.
Instead, Judge Chutkan set a start date of March 4, 2024, which comes smack in the middle of Trump's campaign to return to the White House. On March 5, Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, and Virginia will hold their voting contest for the GOP presidential nomination.
ADVERTISEMENT
By the time Trump's trial starts, fewer than 10 states will have held their primary election. While it's unknown how long the case will take, most legal experts expect it to take weeks, not months—meaning Trump could be convicted long before the GOP convention in July.
Trump faces four criminal counts for his attempt to reverse his 2020 loss to President Joe Biden, a plan that included lying to the American people about nonexistent voter fraud and scheming to interrupt the congressional certification of the vote by using fake electors and pressuring his vice president to abuse his authority.
According to journalists at the courthouse, Trump’s lawyers pushed back on the judge’s decision by claiming the early start would be unfair to the former president. Politico’s Kyle Cheney relayed Trump defense lawyer John Lauro’s courtroom objections on Twitter.
“We will certainly abide by your honor's ruling, as we must. We will not be able to provide adequate representation ... the trial date will deny President Trump the opportunity to have effective assistance of counsel,” Lauro said.
In voicing his opposition that way, it's clear Trump's defense team is laying the groundwork for future appeals that may claim the former president’s constitutional rights were violated during this legal battle.
Legal journalist Brandi Buchman noted that Lauro was “coming in hot” with a booming and, at times, shrill voice—and had to be calmed down by the judge.
“Let's take the temperature down here,” Chutkan said at one point.
Prosecutors stressed the importance of putting Trump on trial as soon as possible. CBS News correspondent Scott MacFarlane quoted prosecutor Molly Gaston’s pleas to the judge.
She spoke about “an extraordinary public interest” in having “a fair and speedy trial,” citing Trump’s relentless onslaught of insults and threats to judges, law enforcement, and the American public.
“On a near daily basis, the defendant posts on social media about this case,” she said, warning that his comments “potentially prejudices the jury pool.”
The case, brought by DOJ Special Counsel Jack Smith, is one of two federal investigations that threaten to imperil the former president’s 2024 campaign as he once again seeks the White House—a campaign that still could interrupt those investigations and lead to Trump potentially pardoning himself. The other investigation is currently a case in the Southern District of Florida, where Trump is expected to face criminal trial in May over his mishandling of hundreds of classified records at his oceanside estate of Mar-a-Lago.
Gaston disclosed on Monday that the DOJ had produced roughly 12.8 million pages of documents for Trump’s defense, and she said discovery in the case was now “substantially complete.”
While Trump’s lawyer Lauro argued it’d be virtually impossible to review all of the documents so quickly, Gaston pointed out, according to reporters in the courtroom, that the DOJ had supplied Trump’s defense with 47,000 pages of “key documents.”
“It is essentially a roadmap to our case,” Gaston said, adding that the DOJ also identified materials for Trump’s lawyers that are arguably beneficial to his defense.
Chutkan seemed mostly moved by that argument, according to reporters there on Monday.
"The manner in which the discovery in this case has been organized indicates that the government has made a considerable effort to expedite review,” Chutkan said.
The judge added that the 12.8 million pages of documents was “not truly indicative of how much time he needs to prepare,” according to reporters present.
And while Chutkan said she wanted to treat Trump like any other defendant, she also pointed out that the former president had the ability to assemble a very capable team of defense lawyers.
“Let’s not overlook the fact that Mr. Trump has considerable resources that every defendant does not usually have,” Chutkan said, according to Cheney.
Trump is also facing criminal charges in New York and Atlanta. He is due to appear in a Manhattan courtroom to face trial in April for faking business records, and the recent indictment filed by the Fulton County District Attorney has not yet been scheduled.
This D.C. case is now set to be the earliest criminal trial Trump faces during the Republican presidential primary election season, and it will almost certainly interrupt his campaign. However, Fulton County DA Fani Willis has publicly announced an intention to put Trump on trial even earlier, which legal scholars have described as an unreasonable time frame.
In setting the March 4 trial date, however, Judge Chutkan did not give the DOJ what it initially wanted. Smith’s prosecutors had sought to put Trump on trial in January immediately after the winter holidays. The trial is now set to start two months after that. Still, Trump critics welcomed the faster resolution.
Victor Shi, who was Biden’s youngest delegate in the 2020 election, publicly thanked the judge for the way “she saw right through Donald Trump’s delay tactic.”
Meanwhile, George Washington University Law School professor and conservative pundit Jonathan Turley lamented what he called a “daisy-chaining of trials” that “presents unnecessary and unfair challenges for the defense.”
At this point, Trump’s late 2023 and early 2024 calendars look filled to the brim with court hearings and legal battles. Having snagged the dubious distinction last week in Atlanta of being the first ever former American president to be booked at a jail, he’s due to appear in Fulton County court for his arraignment on racketeering charges next week.
In October, New York’s Attorney General is putting Trump on civil trial for bank and tax fraud—potentially bleeding dry his eponymous real estate empire and barring him from doing business in the world’s financial capital.
