Three different prosecutors want to put former President Donald Trump on trial in four different cities next year, all before Memorial Day and in the midst of his presidential campaign.
It will be nearly impossible to pull off.
A morass of delays, court backlogs and legal skirmishes awaits, interviews with nearly two dozen current and former prosecutors, judges, legal experts and people involved in the Trump cases show. Some experts predicted that only one or two trials will take place next year; one speculated that none of the four Trump cases will start before the election.
It would be virtually unheard-of for any defendant to play a game of courthouse Twister like this, let alone one who is also the leading contender for the Republican nomination for the presidency. And between the extensive legal arguments that must take place before a trial can begin — not to mention that the trials themselves could last weeks — there are simply not enough boxes on the calendar to squeeze in all the former president’s trials.
“This is something that is not normal,” said Jeffrey Bellin, a former federal prosecutor in Washington who now teaches criminal procedure at William &Mary Law School and believes Trump might only be on trial once next year. “While each of the cases seems at this point to be strong, there’s only so much you can ask a defendant to do at one time.”
Any delay would represent a victory for Trump, who denies all wrongdoing and who could exploit the timeline to undermine the cases against him. Less time sitting in a courtroom equals more time hitting the campaign trail, and his advisers have not tried to hide that Trump hopes to overcome his legal troubles by winning the presidency.
If his lawyers manage to drag out the trials into 2025 or beyond — potentially during a second Trump administration — Trump could seek to pardon himself or order his Justice Department to shut down the federal cases. And although he could not control the state prosecutions in Georgia or Manhattan in New York City, the Justice Department has long held that a sitting president cannot be criminally prosecuted, which very likely applies to state cases as well.
Ultimately, the judges overseeing the four cases might have to coordinate so Trump’s lawyers can adequately prepare his defense without needlessly delaying the trials. Judges are permitted under ethics rules to confer with one another to efficiently administer the business of their courts, experts said, and they periodically do so.
“The four indictments can appear to resemble four cars converging on an intersection that has no lights or stop signs — but that won’t happen,” said Stephen Gillers, a legal ethics professor at New York University School of Law. “Well before the intersection, the judges will figure it out.”
For now, Trump’s court schedule looks to be nearly as crowded as his campaign calendar, with potential trials overlapping with key dates in the Republican primary season. Claiming he is a victim of a weaponized justice system that is seeking to bar him from office, Trump may end up bringing his campaign to the courthouse steps.
A federal special counsel, Jack Smith, has proposed Jan. 2 of next year (two weeks before the Iowa caucuses) as a date for Trump to stand trial in Washington on charges of conspiring to overturn the 2020 election. In a Thursday night court filing, Trump’s lawyers countered with a proposed date of April 2026.
Fani Willis, the Fulton County, Georgia, district attorney who this week announced racketeering charges against Trump, accusing him of orchestrating a “criminal enterprise” to reverse Georgia’s election results, wants that trial to begin March 4 (the day before Super Tuesday).
Smith’s recent case in Washington, and Willis’ in Georgia, were filed after Trump was already scheduled for two additional criminal trials next spring: in New York, on March 25, on state charges related to a hush-money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels; and in Florida, on May 20, on federal charges brought by Smith accusing Trump of mishandling classified material after leaving office.
Although the New York and Florida indictments were unveiled earlier, affording them first crack at the calendar, some experts now argue they should take a back seat to the election-related cases, in Georgia and Washington, in which the charges strike at the core of American democracy. Trial scheduling is not always a first-come, first-served operation, and deference could be given to the most serious charges.
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