2023-08-29 01:03:13
An anti-Trump protester outside the Washington courthouse on August 28, 2023. KEVIN WURM / REUTERS
They are the new unwitting actors in American politics. Their responsibility is immense, their decisions heavy with consequences. In charge of federal or local investigations targeting Donald Trump, quadruple accused and big favorite of the Republican primaries, the magistrates have an essential power: control of the calendar. Monday, August 28, Judge Tanya Chutkan, in Washington, indicated her desire not to drag on. She rejected the requests of the lawyers of the former president, in the instruction on January 6, 2021 and the attempt to interrupt the peaceful transition of power. The latter hoped that the trial would be postponed to 2026, well after the presidential election. The special prosecutor, Jack Smith, bet on next January. The judge almost gave him satisfaction, setting the opening date for March 4, 2024.
The spring of 2024 promises to be a controversial and explosive time in the United States. This date closer to March 4 is symbolic, because of the inevitable collision between the political and judicial calendars. If confirmed – after the various remedies promised by Donald Trump’s lawyers – the trial would begin the day before Super Tuesday, this famous Tuesday pivotal to the nomination race. A dozen primaries will be held at the same time, from California to Massachusetts via Texas.
Iowa and New Hampshire will open official competition beginning in mid-January. This is the moment when the second defamation lawsuit opened against Donald Trump by the former press columnist E. Jean Carroll. A jury in New York estimated in May that the former president had been responsible for a sexual assault against the latter, committed in 1996, and had to pay him five million dollars.
Read also: Donald Trump: the four judicial investigations that threaten the former American president
It is not known the possible duration of the trial on the 6-January. But from March 25, 2024, Donald Trump will be expected at another trial, in New York: that of the payments of money to the ex-actress of X movies Stormy Daniels, then hidden in his campaign accounts in 2016. Then, May 20, 2024 could begin the trial of Donald Trump in the case of the classified archives, which he had taken away when he left the White House and withheld from the federal authorities who were asking for their restitution.
The date of his trial in Georgia not yet set
In this judicial chronology, an essential date is still missing, that of the trial in Georgia for criminal enterprise with a view to manipulating the result of the presidential election. The prosecutor, Fani Willis, proposed the date of October 23, in seven weeks. Donald Trump’s lawyers are fighting to get a postponement beyond the presidential election. The possibility of holding this trial – with a probable television broadcast, imposing it on the air like the soap opera of the moment – would be very dangerous for the ex-president, even if he has so far managed to exploit his own judicial turpitude. In the three days following the publication of his mug shot – mugshot photo – taken on August 24 in Atlanta, Donald Trump managed to collect $ 7.1 million in donations. His financial needs are considerable, due to the cohorts of lawyers handling all his ongoing cases.
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