By Marlyn Montilla
Aug 29, 2023, 09:29 AM EDT
Former President Donald Trump’s team assured that the date chosen by the judge to start a trial against him for his efforts to annul the 2020 elections deprives him of the right to a fair trial.
“The set date deprives President Trump of his constitutional right to a fair trial, a fundamental principle of the United States, and continues to expose the corruption and witch hunt that is being launched,” a spokesman for the former president said in a statement. .
Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is leading the case that ended with the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, reported Monday that the scheduled date will be March 4, one day before Super Tuesday.
That day is the closest there is in the United States to a national primary, since more than a dozen Republican and Democratic states simultaneously hold internal processes to choose their candidates.
In a publication through his Truth Social network, the New York tycoon announced that he is going to appeal Chutkan’s decision and insisted again that the Joe Biden Administration is carrying out a “witch hunt” against him.
With the decision, the judge dismissed the request of the special prosecutor, Jack Smith, that the trial begin in January 2024, a date close to the anniversary of the assault on Congress.
Likewise, the interest of Trump’s lawyers to postpone the process until after the 2024 presidential elections, which are held in November of that year and in which the former president is still the favorite Republican candidate. The legal team had requested that the trial begin in April 2026.
During his speech, Chutkan assured that he was not going to allow the political agenda of the former Republican president (who has four open criminal proceedings) to dictate what the trial schedule would be.
“If this case involved a professional athlete, for example, it would be inappropriate to set a trial date based on her game schedule,” said Chutkan, who assured that the schedule proposed by Trump went “far beyond what is necessary” to prepare the case.
Trump is charged in Washington DC with four counts of conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct official process, obstruction and attempt to obstruct official process, and conspiracy against rights.
If he is found guilty of the first of the charges against him, he could be sentenced to a maximum sentence of five years in prison, for the second and third twenty years in prison, respectively, and for the fourth, 10 years.
With information from EFE
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