US Judge Sets Trial Date For Federal Case Against Trump Over Plot To Overturn 2020 Election

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan dismissed a defence plea to postpone the trial until April 2026, roughly a year and a half after the 2024 election.

Former US President Donald Trump.

Source : AFP

A federal judge in Washington's federal case accusing the former president of attempting to change the results of the 2020 election set a trial date for Donald Trump for March 4, 2024, news agency Associated Press (AP) reported. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan dismissed a defence plea to postpone the trial until April 2026, roughly a year and a half after the 2024 election, but it also pushes it back from the January date requested by special counsel Jack Smith's team.

“The public has a right to prompt and efficient resolution of this matter,” she was quoted by AP in its report.

If the date is confirmed, it will fall precisely in the centre of the Republican presidential nomination cycle and the day before Super Tuesday, a critical voting day when the largest number of delegates are up for grabs.

Trump, a Republican, was accused earlier this month in a four-count indictment with plotting to avenge his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden.

One of four criminal charges filed against Trump is for federal election disruption. Smith's team has filed a second federal action accusing him of unlawfully holding secret materials at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, and refusing to return them. That case is now scheduled for trial on May 20, 2019.

Trump is also facing state prosecution in New York and Georgia. Prosecutors in Manhattan have charged him with falsifying business records in connection with a hush money payment to a porn actress who claims she had an extramarital affair with Trump, while prosecutors in Fulton County, Georgia, have charged Trump and 18 others in a racketeering conspiracy aimed at undermining the state's 2020 election.

Trump, the early front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, surrendered in that case on Thursday, posing for the first mug photo of a former president in American history. He has alleged that the investigations into him are politically motivated and intended to harm his chances of regaining the presidency.