Trump Proposes 2026 Start Date for Election Interference Trial

Donald Trump's attorneys requested an April 2026 trial date on Thursday, which is several years after the upcoming year's presidential election.

The move is being made as lead prosecutor Jack Smith pushes for a January 2 start date in the case, one of four legal inquiries Trump is juggling while running for president.

The public interest, according to the ex-president's counsel, was in justice and a fair trial, not in a speedy conclusion, as stated in their application.

They argued that the amount of paperwork in the case would require months to process.

"Assuming we could begin reviewing the documents today, we would need to proceed at a pace of 99,762 pages per day to finish the government's initial production by its proposed date for jury selection," they said.

"That is the entirety of Tolstoy's War and Peace, cover to cover, 78 times a day, every day, from now until jury selection."

Judge Tanya Chutkan is set to decide the trial date on August 28.

"The government's proposed (January 2) trial date represents an appropriate balance of the defendant's right to prepare a defense and the public's strong interest in a speedy trial in the case," Smith previously said in a court filing asking for the January start.

The case is the most serious of four criminal probes that have yielded dozens of felony charges against Trump, including allegations that he covered up hush money payments to a porn star in a bid to cheat campaign finance rules ahead of the 2016 election.

The government also accuses Trump of mishandling dozens of classified documents he took from the White House as he left office, including military plans and nuclear secrets, and plotting with his staff to hide them from investigators.

Biden's attorney general, Merrick Garland, appointed Smith as a special counsel in the federal election conspiracy case, giving him sole charge of prosecuting decisions in a bid to avoid actual or apparent political influence.

Trump and his team have decried the prosecution as politically biased.

"The incumbent administration has targeted its primary political opponent -- and leading candidate in the upcoming presidential election -- with criminal prosecution," his lawyers said in their Thursday filing.

The dates for two of Trump's other trials, at the state level in New York and at the federal level in Florida, have already been set to open ahead of the November 2024 vote, in March and May, respectively.

His Georgia election-related racketeering charges have not yet had a trial date set.

Trump announced on his Truth Social network on Thursday that he would postpone a news conference on the Georgia 2020 election scheduled for Monday at his Bedminster, New Jersey golf club. At the news conference, he had promised to present new proof of his long-standing claims of voter fraud in the state.

He said that his attorneys wanted to present the argument through "formal legal filings."

Source: AFP