Lawyers on social media have mocked the idea that former President Donald Trump's trial in Washington, D.C., could be held as late as April 2026 following a suggestion from his attorneys.
Trump's lawyers have proposed that date in response to the Department of Justice (DOJ), which is asking for the trial to begin on January 2, 2024. It follows Trump's indictment after Special Counsel Jack Smith's investigation into attempts to overturn the 2020 election and the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot.
Earlier this month, a grand jury indicted Trump on Tuesday on four charges in the Capitol riot probe: conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding; and conspiracy against rights.
The former president has pleaded not guilty to the charges and denied all wrongdoing, while he has also repeatedly attacked Smith's probe. The frontrunner in the 2024 GOP presidential primary also has accused the special counsel of election interference with his federal investigation.
Donald Trump at the 15th hole at Trump National Golf Club on August 11, 2023 in Bedminster, New Jersey. The former president's attorneys are seeking a 2026 trial date in a case in Washington, D.C. Mike Stobe/Getty Images
Trump's attorneys have asked that the trial begin in April 2026, citing the large amount of information they will need to review as well as scheduling conflicts due to other trials.
A date has been set in the DOJ's other set of charges against Trump, which accuse him of mishandling classified documents discovered at his Mar-a-Lago, Florida, estate last August. That trial will begin on May 20.
A trial involving criminal charges in Manhattan regarding several alleged hush-money payments is set to begin on March 25. Trump has also pleaded not guilty in both cases.
"If we were to print and stack 11.5 million pages of documents, with no gap between pages, at 200 pages per inch, the result would be a tower of paper stretching nearly 5,000 feet into the sky. That is taller than the Washington Monument, stacked on top of itself eight times, with nearly a million pages to spare," Trump's attorneys wrote in August 17 filing.
Lawyers on social-media site X, formerly Twitter, appeared to ridicule the idea that the trial could be delayed that long.
Newsweek has reached out to the Trump team via email for comment.
"Trump has proposed an April 2026 trial date in the Jan. 6 case. No, that's not a typo. Yes, it's totally absurd," wrote Laurence Tribe, a legal scholar and professor emeritus at Harvard University.
Legal analyst and former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance shared a video from MSNBC about Trump's attorneys' proposal and posted: "This is actually funny. 2026. Good luck with that."
"I'll eat my hat if Judge Chutkan agrees with Trump to start this trial in 2026. Absurd," wrote former U.S. Acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal on X. "He's just afraid to stand trial. Nothing more."
Harry Litman, senior legal affairs columnist at The Los Angeles Times, took to X to describe the request as "Chutzpah defined."
Marc Elias, partner at the Elias Law Group and founder of Democracy Docket, a website focused on voting rights and election litigation, wrote on X: "I continue to be amazed at the consistency of the bad strategy of Trump's various legal teams. Asking for a criminal trial date in 2026 is a joke."
Lawyer Tristan Snell also noted the proposed trial date, writing on X: "No that is not a typo. Funny that someone who claims he's obviously and provably innocent would want to delay clearing his name for so long."
However, Trump's lawyers said that the timeline would "avoid scheduling conflicts with other pending matters" and "provide sufficient time to address the production of discovery."
"This is an unprecedented case in American history," the August 17 filing for the delay states. "The incumbent administration has targeted its primary political opponent—and leading candidate in the upcoming presidential election—with criminal prosecution ... the government spent over 2 1/2 years investigating this matter."
The trial date will ultimately be decided by U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is expected to set a tentative date at a hearing on August 28.
Ven18 on August 18th, 2023 at 11:30 UTC »
This is his lawyers wildly overplaying their hand and every judge is going to call them out on it. If they wanted a case set in 2026 they should have tried that in Georgia not DC. Georgia has 19 defendants you can argue that case might take a year to get going just from scheduling conflicts alone. But proposing it for DC a trial where Trump is the only guy on trial and outside of the evidence of criminality there are no special factors like classified docs it is the trial that can probably start first. I look forward to the Judge laughing them out of court.
Lou_C_Fer on August 18th, 2023 at 11:10 UTC »
First... they spent a year and a half investigating because Trump lackeys in the doj and fbi resisted until the j6 committee forced their hands... so not two and a half years. Second, a large part of the time in that year and a half was due to delays engineered by Trump. Third, if your crime causes the production of so much paperwork, hire more fucking lawyers.
Finally, the judge should grant this trial date, then she should remand him to custody pending trial for the witness tampering crimes he has committed since he was warned in the initial hearing.
baseballgrow6 on August 18th, 2023 at 11:07 UTC »
Its amazing how dumb people are. Trump says he’ll release evidence soon, while his lawyers SIMULTANEOUSLY argue in court to move the trial as far as possible because “it’ll take years to go through all the evidence”
Ok which is it, need years? Or you’ve had evidence ready to go?
I know these are slightly about two different cases, but the trump lawyers are going to argue to put each trial in 2026. Oof.