🎙️ Voice is AI-generated. Inconsistencies may occur.
A former federal prosecutor said she finds it "perplexing" that Fulton County, Georgia, prosecutors want to put former President Donald Trump on trial just months before the 2024 election.
The August 5 start date suggested by District Attorney Fani Willis means Trump's trial would almost certainly continue after Election Day, November 5, 2024.
Nineteen people were indicted in the case. With a lengthy trial expected, Trump could be sworn in as president on January 20, 2025, as the trial continues.
In August, a grand jury voted to indict Trump and 18 others over alleged attempts to overturn Georgia's 2020 presidential election results, charging the former president and every other co-defendant with violating the Georgia Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. Four of the 19 indicted have accepted a plea deal and agreed to testify.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to all 13 counts he faces. Newsweek reached out to a lawyer for Trump by email on Monday for comment.
If elected president, Trump has a large number of legal options to stop the trial, including seeking presidential immunity or arguing before the U.S. Supreme Court that the trial is interfering with his presidential work.
New York University law professor Stephen Gillers told Newsweek that the Supreme Court would likely delay the trial until he's out of office.
"Of course, as with many things Trump, we lack a precedent," Gillers said. "But I believe that the Supreme Court would order a delay of any state criminal prosecution of a sitting president until the end of his term, regardless of when the alleged crime occurred."
Former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance, said that Willis's proposed August 5 start date is "a little perplexing," given that there may be an opportunity to put Trump on trial earlier in the year, especially as Judge Aileen Cannon might delay Trump's trial for allegedly hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
Trump, the front-runner for the Republican nomination in the 2024 presidential race, pleaded not guilty in June to 37 criminal counts related to his handling of classified materials, after prosecutors alleged he repeatedly refused to return hundreds of documents containing classified information. In August, Trump pleaded not guilty to three additional felony charges in the case.
Writing on her Civil Discourse blog, Vance said that she will be watching to see what Judge Scott McAfee makes of Willis' August 2024 request.
"With Judge Aileen Cannon in Florida showing signs of being less than committed to her May trial schedule, there might be some room for an earlier date in Georgia, which makes the timing of Willis' request a little perplexing," Vance wrote. "The Mar-a-Lago case is straightforward, and it's hard to imagine it taking more than several weeks, at the outside, to try. We may gain some insight Friday on when Judge McAfee wants to try his case."
In an interview at The Washington Post Live's Global Women's Summit on November 13, Willis said the trial could be ongoing on Election Day 2024 and possibly still underway on Inauguration Day.
"I believe the trial will take many months. And I don't expect that we will conclude until the winter or the very early part of 2025," Willis said. "I don't, when making decisions about cases to bring, consider any election cycle or an election season."
If Trump is reelected president, he may be able to halt the trial until he is out of office, by which time he would be 82.
fairness meter
About the writer
Sean O'Driscoll is a Newsweek Senior Crime and Courts Reporter based in Ireland. His focus is reporting on U.S. law. ... Read more