Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has requested an Aug. 5 trial date for former President Donald Trump and his remaining co-defendants in the Georgia election meddling case.
The proposed start is exactly three months before the 2024 presidential election, a period in which Trump, the Republican presidential front-runner, will likely hit the campaign trail hard if he becomes the GOP nominee.
“This proposed trial date balances the possible delay from Defendant Trump’s other criminal trial in sister jurisdiction and Defendant’s other constitutional speedy trial rights,” Willis wrote in a Friday filing to Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee.
The district attorney noted that Trump, 77, is now scheduled to go on trial on March 4 in Washington in the 20220 federal election interference case, and in Florida on May 20 to face charges of storing national security documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate. after leaving the office.
“Therefore, the start date of August 5, 2024, is unlikely to be subject to delay or disruption from this other trial,” he added.
Willis has asked the judge to set Trump’s trial date in Georgia on August 5, 2024.REUTERS
Trump is also set to stand trial on March 25 in Manhattan on charges that he falsified related business records to cover up payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal.
Willis also asked the judge to set a final deadline of June 21 for accepting negotiated guilty pleas and asked McAfee not to consider any requests from the defendants to sever their trials from each other until after that date.
Trump is charged with 13 criminal charges in the case.Getty Images
Four of the 19 people charged in Willis’ wide-ranging indictment alleging conspiracy to illegally alter the results of the 2020 Georgia election have agreed to plea deals in the case — former Trump-supporting attorneys Jenna Ellis, Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro and Atlanta- bail based on Scott Hall’s guarantee.
A Georgia grand jury indicted Trump on 13 felony charges in August, including racketeering, conspiracy, making false statements and soliciting public officials to violate their oath of office.
Willis, an elected Democrat, insisted during an appearance at the Washington Post’s Global Women’s Summit on Tuesday that the 2024 election cycle did not play a role in her calculus for bringing the case and suggested that Trump’s case would go to trial and could drag on until 2025.
“I believe in that case there will be a trial. I believe the trial will take months,” Willis said. “And I don’t expect that we’ll come to a conclusion until the winter or early 2025.”
Trump has been hit with a total of 91 criminal charges across four indictments brought against him this year, and he faces a maximum sentence of 712 years and six months if convicted and given the maximum sentence on all charges.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
