Trump's federal trial in election subversion case set for March 2024

Washington, Aug 29

US District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan has posted for March 4, 2024, to bring to trial former President Donald Trump on charges of attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election even as parallel hearing was being held in Atlanta Monday morning to determine whether his former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, can move his election-related indictment from state to a federal court.

Trump is a frontrunner in the Republican 2024 presidential contest, and the Washington D.C. trial's starting date is the day before the Super Tuesday primaries, media reports said.

Trump, only person indicted in the Washington D.C. case so far, reportedly enlisted six unnamed conspirators to overturn the Joe Biden victory to cling to power in the White House, his indictment reveals. He is the first former US President to face criminal charges, being indicted in four cases -- all of them while leading the Republican field in the 2024 presidential nomination race.

The former President has denied any wrongdoing and claimed it was his right under the constitution (which he once said should be annulled) to question an election verdict.

Chutkan, in setting a March 2024 date for the D.C. federal trial of Trump on charges that he tried to obstruct the certification of the 2020 election, said that the public has a right to see the trial ASAP. "I take seriously the defense’s request that Trump will be treated like any other defendant appearing before this court, and I intend to do so," Chutkan said at a hearing Monday morning.

The trial date set by Judge Chutkan is actually two months later than prosecutors had requested, but far earlier than the proposal by Trump's legal team. Trump wanted the trial to begin in April 2026, long after the 2024 presidential election. Prosecutors had proposed that it begin in January 2024, media reports said.