U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan announced on Monday that the start of former President Donald Trump’s trial for allegedly attempting to overturn the 2020 election results would be March 4, 2024, which is just one day before Super Tuesday in the Republican Party primary is due to take place. To say this has not been a popular choice with conservatives would probably be an understatement, as many of them took to social media to express their displeasure with the announcement.
The Daily Wire reported that Chutkan listened to arguments and requested dates from both federal prosecutors involved with the case, as well as Trump’s legal team on Monday morning in Washington, D.C., before going on to state that neither side really provided an appropriate start date for the trial. The federal government wanted to kick the proceedings off in January, while the Trump team was hoping for April 2026.
Obviously, prosecutors for the federal government, who are likely pro-Biden liberals, want the trial to start before the end of the GOP primary so they can hopefully disqualify the former president and prevent him from being the nominee who takes on Joe Biden in the general election. If the trial is held in 2026, that obviously prevents them from accomplishing that goal, along with providing Trump’s legal team to have more time to work in his defense.
“These proposals are obviously very far apart,” Chutkan went on to say in court. “Neither of them is acceptable.”
“According to NBC News, Chutkan dismissed the notion that the date should accommodate Trump’s third bid for the presidency. Chutkan reportedly said that the GOP frontrunner would have to prioritize his legal obligations in this case. Meanwhile, Trump attorney John Lauro blasted the Special Counsel’s suggested date, saying that the federal government was running a ‘show trial, not a speedy trial,'” the report said.
Trump’s legal representatives also attempted to make the case that a trial in the early part of 2024 did not allow them to have sufficient time to look through the evidence during discovery.
“Discovery in 2023 is not sitting in a warehouse with boxes of paper looking at every single page,” Chutkan pointed out in her decision regarding the start date of the trial.
In the early part of August, the former president was indicted concerning a series of federal charges that are connected to election interference, which specifically includes a conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction, and conspiracy against the right to vote and to have one’s vote counted.
A few important figures within the conservative movement quickly pointed out that the trial date set by the judge should be considered “election interference,” since it is just a single day before Super Tuesday.
“Unfortunately, Tanya Chutkan delivered for the Biden regime yet again, while pretending she’s meeting both sides halfway,” Fox News host Mark Levin said in response to the announcement. “March next year is a PREPOSTEROUS date to set for trial.”
“The DOJ has gone from strongly admonishing prosecutors not to interfere with elections, to doing everything possible to sabotage the Trump campaign and the presidential election,” he added.
“Judge Chutkan is a political operative in a robe,” Congressman Matt Gaetz (R-FL) commented on social media. “We should set her censure for a vote ASAP to expose this sham and restore our republic.”
Judge Chutkan is a political operative in a robe.
We should set her censure for a vote ASAP to expose this sham and restore our republic. https://t.co/mwdUljM8UQ
— Matt Gaetz (@mattgaetz) August 28, 2023
“J6 defendants have been rotting away in solitary awaiting trial for YEARS, but somehow Trump’s documents trial—which involves something like 60 million documents—magically gets scheduled for mid-2024? Mmmk.” The Federalist’s Sean Davis wrote on X.
I was just about to tweet this exact point, but @seanmdav beat me to it. They're just wanna put him in prison, folks. https://t.co/i4lVEXxRNZ
— Steve Deace (@SteveDeaceShow) August 28, 2023
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