Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis on Wednesday requested a trial date of March 4, 2024, for former President Donald Trump and his 18 co-defendants in the Georgia election case.
If Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee agrees with Wilis’ proposal, Trump’s trial would commence one day after Super Tuesday, when Republican voters in 15 states and American Samoa will head to the polls to choose their preference for the party’s 2024 presidential nominee.
The proposed trial start date also falls on the same day as the North Dakota caucuses.
A court filing submitted by prosecutors also proposed arraignments for the defendants beginning the week of Sept. 5, with Willis claiming her requested dates “do not conflict” with the 77-year-old former president’s three other criminal cases.
Trump, the GOP frontrunner, faces 13 felony counts in Georgia, including charges that he violated the Peach State’s anti-racketeering law, engaged in a conspiracy, made false statements and asked a public official to violate their oath of office.
Willis asserts in the filing that the former president and his co-defendants, including former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, and former Trump lawyers Sidney Powell, John Eastman and Jenna Ellis, will have “until 10 days after arraignment to opt into reciprocal discovery” and if they opt-in, “all parties shall serve discovery materials then in its possession upon opposing counsel no later than September 29, 2023.”
“Any additional discovery shall be provided to opposing counsel on a rolling basis and as soon as practicable once available,” she adds.
The district attorney also suggests that the final pre-trial conference be held on Feb. 20, 2024.
On Tuesday, Trump slammed the four criminal indictments leveled against him since leaving office and announcing his 2024 White House bid as political persecution and “election interference,” demanding that no trials take place until after the 2024 election.
“All of these Biden Administration bogus trials and cases, including the locals, should be brought after the 2024 Presidential Election. What they have done is already Election Interference, but if the trials are held before the Election, then it would be Interference on a scale never seen in our Country before,” the former president wrote in a Truth Social post.
Willis stated during a press conference on Monday that she doesn’t “have any desire to be first or last” when it comes to trying Trump in a court of law.
“I want to try him and be respectful for our sovereign states. We do want to move this case along and so we will be asking for a proposed order that occurs a trial date within the next six months,” she added.
Trump’s criminal trial in Manhattan on charges of falsifying business records related to hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels is set for March 25, 2024.
Meanwhile, in Miami, a federal judge has set a May 20, 2024, trial date in special counsel Jack Smith’s case accusing Trump of mishandling national security documents.
Smith’s office has also proposed a Jan. 2, 2024, trial date for Trump in the case involving “knowingly false” claims made by the former president in an attempt to stay in power after the 2020 election.