His defense Donald Trump proposed Thursday that his trial in federal court in Washington for his alleged efforts to fraudulently overturn the outcome of the 2020 election be held in April 2026, well after the 2024 presidential election.

A week ago, special prosecutor Jack Smith proposed that the trial of the former US president begin on January 2, 2024, estimating that it should not last more than “four to six weeks”.

Tanya Chutkan, the judge who will preside over the hearing, scheduled an Aug. 28 hearing to set a trial date and invited the parties to make their submissions before she makes a ruling.

“The public interest lies in conducting (…) a fair trial and not (to issue) a hasty judgment,” Mr Trump’s advocates argued yesterday, proposing the timetable.

According to them, the examination of the documents of the file alone requires years.

If the prosecutor’s proposed timeline were to go through, “even if we were to start going through these documents today, we would need to process 99,762 pages a day (…) to finish on time,” they said.

This is a volume of documents equal to its area “the book War and Peace [σ.σ. του Λέοντα Τολστόι]front to back, 78 times a day, every day, until jury selection,” at the start of the trial, they added.

That date, April 2026 – more than two and a half years away – will allow them to adequately prepare their client’s defense without interfering with the remaining prosecutions against him, they argued.

Donald Trump, who is campaigning in the Republican Party and dreams of “recapturing” the White House in 2024, is the target of four criminal charges, two at the federal level (Washington, Florida), one in the state of New York and one in Georgia (southeast).
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The real estate mogul consistently attributes his legal troubles to the government of Democratic President Joe Bidenwhich he may find in front of him in 2024, for the rematch of the 2020 elections.

Denouncing “interference” in the electoral process, he insists that the trials should be held after the elections.

“None of these trials it should not be allowed to begin before the November 2024 election’, he said again through his personal creation Truth Social platform.

Jan. 2 offers “an adequate balance between the defendant’s right to prepare his defense and the strong public interest in a speedy trial” for this landmark case, in which the former president is accused of undermining the foundations of federal institutions, he argued. on the contrary Jack Smith.

The dates for Mr Trump’s New York and Florida have already been set: March and May 2024 respectively.