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Former President Donald Trump has requested that his trial for which he's accused of attempting to subvert the 2020 election results should be postponed until April 2026, well after the next presidential election has been decided.
The requested start date, made in a court filing Thursday, is more than two years after the date suggested by the Department of Justice (DOJ) last week, which argued that Trump's trial should begin on January 2. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan is expected to make the final decision on a tentative date at a court hearing scheduled for August 28.
Similar to his other criminal cases, Trump's defense team was expected to request that trial proceedings be delayed until after the November 2024 election. The former president has argued that the federal charges against him—which accuse him of attempting to remain in power even after losing to President Joe Biden—are an attempt to interfere with his reelection bid.
A date has already 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 estate last August. That trial will begin on May 20. A trial involving his criminal charges in Manhattan regarding several alleged hush-money payments is set to begin on March 25.
In an email to Newsweek Thursday night, the DOJ said it had no comment on the latest filing from Trump's lawyers.
Trump Argues Delay Necessary for 'Scope' of DOJ's Probe
At the heart of Trump's proposal, which was signed by his attorney Gregory Singer, his defense team argues that the sheer "size and scope" of the evidence being brought by federal prosecutors requires a longer time to prepare for trial. Trump's lawyers note that Special Counsel Jack Smith spent 2 1/2 years investigating the former president, during which the DOJ "interviewed and subpoenaed hundreds of witnesses, executed over 40 search warrants, and compiled information from countless individual sources."
According to the filing, federal prosecutors provided an "initial production" of some of the evidence related to the investigation, which totaled over 11.5 million pages. To help the court "comprehend" that high of a number, Trump's lawyers estimated the height of the documents if they were printed out and stacked on top of each other—with no gaps between pages, the team estimates the tower to total over 4,822 feet.
That analogy also only includes printed text files, and does not consider the "large number of additional documents" that prosecutors have said it still intends to produce in its discovery.
"Simply put, the discovery in this case is enormous and growing," read Thursday's filing. "Although defense counsel will, of course, work diligently to review this material, the process will take time. For example, even under our Proposed Schedule, we would need to review approximately 12,000 pages per day to complete a first pass of the initial production by our proposed trial date."
Trump Lawyers Estimate Needing 4-6 Weeks for Defense
Starting in April 2026 would also just be the beginning of a lengthy trial under Trump's current proposal. Defense attorneys argued that, while it's just an estimate at this time without seeing the full discovery, the former president will need four to six weeks to present his case in court.
Trump's lawyers also argued in the filing that the case against the former president "is not just complex or unusual. It is terra incognita."
"No president has ever been charged with a crime for conduct committed while in office," the defense team continued. "No major party presidential candidate has ever been charged while in the middle of a campaign—and certainly not by a Justice Department serving his opponent. These and numerous other issues will be questions of first impression, requiring significant time for the parties to consider and brief, and for the Court to resolve."
In his proposal last week, Smith estimated that the DOJ's case could last just as long. If both sides get what they want, the total trial could take roughly 14 weeks, including the time it would take for jury selection.
DOJ's Date Conflicts With Trump's Other Cases: Defense
Singer also argued that the DOJ's proposed schedule "presents numerous conflicts" with Trump's other "pending matters." The former president already has a crowded schedule ahead of the GOP primary votes in the spring, starting with a lawsuit from New York Attorney General Letitia James that heads to court October 2. The Democratic attorney general is suing Trump and his company, The Trump Organization, accusing the former president and his business of inflating and undervaluing a number of assets for financial gain.
A few months later, beginning on January 15, Trump's legal team heads to trial for a second time in the defamation suit filed by E. Jean Carroll, a former magazine columnist who in May successfully sued the former president for defamation and battery. January's trial will include additional comments made by Trump, when he denied ever assaulting Carroll.
Trump's first criminal trial, which includes 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up alleged hush money payments made in 2016, will begin in March, followed a few weeks later by the DOJ's first set of charges against the former president regarding classified documents, which starts May 20.
"Without question, President Trump's obligation to diligently prepare for this case does not end because of other pending matters," read Thursday's filing. "However, the Court may, and should, consider the practical effects these parallel prosecutions will have on President Trump's ability to meet the extraordinarily brief deadlines the government proposes."
About the writer
Kaitlin Lewis is a Newsweek reporter on the Night Team based in Boston, Massachusetts. Her focus is reporting on national ... Read more