West News Wire: Donald Trump, a former president, and 18 other people will go on trial in March on charges linked to attempts to rig the Georgia 2020 election, according to Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.
A March 4 start date is suggested in the Wednesday-filed proposed pretrial scheduling order.
The election in 2024, in which Trump is running for re-election, falls one day before Super Tuesday.
A potential clash between the scheduled trial date and Trump’s New York trial on charges of falsifying company records in relation to a hush money payment made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels days prior to the 2016 presidential election is also possible.
That trial is currently scheduled to begin March 25. A spokesperson for the Manhattan district attorney’s office told news reporters they would not comment on another jurisdiction’s request.
Willis, in Wednesday’s filing, also suggested that arraignment in the case take place “for the various defendants” three weeks from now, during the week of Sept. 5.
The brief notes that “the State of Georgia proposes certain deadlines that do not conflict with the already scheduled hearings and trial dates of these other courts,” given that “the Defendant Donald John Trump’s other criminal and civil matters pending in the courts of our sister sovereigns.”
In a broad racketeering indictment filed on Monday, Trump and 18 other defendants were charged with conspiring to tamper with Georgia’s election results. The former president claims that the investigation is politically motivated and that his acts were not unlawful.
The indictment is the fourth for the former president, who already faces federal charges in the special counsel’s Jan. 6 and classified documents investigations in addition to the Manhattan District Attorney’s hush money case. In all four cases, he has entered a not-guilty plea.
Prior to Trump, no former or current president had ever been indicted.
