Judge Chutkan Sets Fani Willis Up for Disappointment in Trump Trial

The judge overseeing former President Donald Trump's federal trial on election interference charges may have thrown a wrench in the efforts by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to try the current Republican frontrunner for president in a Georgia courtroom ahead of next year's elections.

After weeks of back-and-forth between Trump's legal team and Department of Justice Special Counsel Jack Smith's office, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan decided Monday to begin jury selection on March 4, officially kicking off formal efforts to try the president on allegations he and his associates worked to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election to remain in power. Trump has denied all wrongdoing and pleaded not guilty to the charges in both cases.

The March 4 trial date—which comes right before the critical "Super Tuesday" primaries for the Republican nomination for president—represents a win for Smith's team after initially requesting a hasty January 2 trial date. It was also a loss for Trump's team, which pushed for a significantly later trial date in April 2026.

"Today a biased, Trump Hating Judge gave me only a two-month extension, just what our corrupt government wanted, SUPER TUESDAY. I will APPEAL!" Trump wrote on Truth Social after the date was announced.

The date also represents a setback for Willis in her own attempts to schedule a trial before the 2024 election after her office's news-breaking arrest of the former president on August 24, with the new date directly coinciding with Willis' own requested trial start date of March 4.

Newsweek has reached out to the Fulton County D.A.'s office for comment on whether the federal trial date could potentially interfere with their own timeline in the case.

In an interview with Fox News over the weekend, Trump's legal spokesperson and attorney Alina Habba told the network's Shannon Bream that the trial dates initially proposed by both teams were likely unrealistic and intentionally designed to stall his campaign for president. Newsweek has reached out to Habba's office via email for comment.

Habba told Fox News that Trump's legal team would continue to push to move the trial dates, arguing the prosecution was "definitely political" in its intent.

"These trial dates also are going to move," she told the network. "It's unrealistic. It's theatrics, and no judge is going to say that you can be on two trials at once in two different states, because a lot of these overlap."

"They look at the start date of the trial, but these are four to six-week trials at the least," she said. "So there's no way they're not going to overlap. I mean, they're gonna have to go into October, November of next year, again, by design."

It's a prospect some of Trump's own challengers have admitted could loom large over their party's chances to win the 2024 election—particularly given Trump's dominating lead in all major polls of the Republican primary electorate.

"I think for Republican voters, the biggest thing they have to look at now is that we're gonna have a guy running for president who, from March 4 probably for the next four-to-six weeks, will be every day in a courtroom in Washington, D.C., and not campaigning against Joe Biden," former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a leading Trump critic and current Republican candidate for president, told CNN's Jake Tapper Monday afternoon after the date was set.

"This is disastrous for the Republican Party," he added. "And this is why I've been saying—right from the time I got into the race—that given his personal conduct, given the stuff that he did himself, that he simply can't be our nominee."