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A federal judge on Monday set Donald Trump's federal election interference trial for March 2024, with jury selection scheduled to start on March 4, the day before Super Tuesday primaries.
Special counsel Jack Smith's team had asked for an early January start, while the former president's legal team asked for ... April 2026 (no, that's not a typo). U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan didn't grant the government's aggressive request but she didn't stray too far from it in rejecting the defense's unrealistic one.
"You're not going to get two more years. This case is not going to trial in 2026," Chutkan told Trump's legal team at a hearing in Washington, D.C., on Monday.
Trump, who has four pending criminal cases, now has three criminal trial dates set for next year. This federal election case in Washington is now set to go first.
Trump's New York state hush money trial is slated to begin roughly three weeks later in March, and his federal classified documents and obstruction trial is set for May. The former president was also charged in Georgia earlier this month, in a state 2020 election interference probe whose allegations overlap with the federal case that just got a trial date. Trump doesn't have a Georgia trial date yet.
Generally speaking, trial dates can always shift. So don't be surprised if that happens in some or all of Trump's cases, given, among other things, the sheer volume of his caseload (he has multiple civil matters pending, too), coupled with the fact that he is a presidential candidate. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg previously suggested he isn't wedded to the March date for the hush money case.
If jury selection does go forward on March 4 in Trump's federal election interference case, then don't expect his New York state case to start that month. Federal prosecutors previously told Chutkan their part of the case could take four to six weeks to present. So the March 4 start date could also wind up pushing back Trump's classified documents trial as well if that May date otherwise holds in Florida.