Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
Trump lawyers seek ’26 election trial date
Defense cites ‘massive’ amount of documents
WASHINGTON — Lawyers for Donald Trump asked a federal judge Thursday to put off until 2026 a trial in Washington on charges that the former president plotted to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
The suggested April 2026 date is a counterproposal to the Justice Department’s recommendation last week that the trial should begin Jan. 2, 2024. Special counsel Jack Smith’s team is expected to oppose the Trump team’s request, which seeks to put off his trial until nearly a year and a half after the 2024 presidential election, in which Trump is currently the early front-runner for the Republican nomination.
The question is ultimately up to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is expected to set at least a tentative trial date during an Aug. 28 court hearing.
In a court filing Thursday evening, Trump’s lawyers say the years-long delay is warranted because of the “massive” amount of information — prosecutors have already produced more than 11.5 million pages — they have to review and because of scheduling conflicts with the other criminal cases Trump is facing.
As it stands, they said they would have to review about 100,000 pages per day in order to meet the Justice Department’s proposed date for jury selection.
“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,” the defense lawyers wrote.
They also contend that the case concerns unprecedented questions that will take time to sort out.
Meanwhile on Thursday night, Trump said he was canceling plans for a press conference this week to unveil what he claims is new evidence of fraud in the 2020 election in Georgia, citing the advice of lawyers.