Judge sets start date of March 4 for Trump's federal election interference trial

Telorand, 8 months ago

Reminder that Project 2025 is a Heritage Foundation plan to gut the powers of Congress and policy-making commissions, and to disproportionately empower the Executive branch.

I do not think for a minute that the 2026 date is accidental.

FlyingSquid, 8 months ago

That’s right in the middle of the primaries, right? That should make things interesting.

deconstruct, 8 months ago

It’s the day before Super Tuesday. 15 states will have primaries.

root_beer, 8 months ago

My thoughts exactly. Furthermore, if they moved it to April 2026 and Trump—in the darkest timeline possible—won the election, the trial would be canceled altogether.

derpo, 8 months ago

that was definitely by design

kent_eh, 8 months ago

Blatantly so.

perviouslyiner, 8 months ago

Wow, one of their examples/citations of a trial taking a long time was a Judge Chutkan case, and she just reminded them that it was because of the pandemic!

onionbaggage, 8 months ago

Day before Super Tuesday. Lawl.

Chickens, 8 months ago

Not political prosecution. Nope.

onionbaggage, 8 months ago

When you’re a criminal they let you do it. Grab them by the indictment.

Heresy_generator, 8 months ago

The prosecution wanted to get the trial started earlier. An innocent defendant also would have wanted a speedy trial to get his innocence out there before the primaries, but for some reason Trump wanted to delay the trial for years.

samus12345, 8 months ago

Trump’s lawyers, in contrast, requested that Judge Tanya Chutkan, the federal judge overseeing the case, schedule the trial for April of 2026 – more than two and a half years from now – due in part to the extended period of time they said they would need to review the large amount of discovery evidence the government has provided in the case in the hopes that Trump will be re-elected and thus immune from prosecution.

echodot, 8 months ago

Which was probably why the judge denied it. They already have reviewed all the evidence, they did it ages ago, we know they did because Trump told us he had some “irrefutable evidence” that he was going to submit in court.

So if they need more evidence they just have to ask Trump to provide it, which of course he definitely has and will be able to provide.

iHUNTcriminals, 8 months ago

It still blows my mind that this guy’s still alive.

flossdaily, 8 months ago

The thing that cracks me up is that you have these Republican candidates running against Trump, and they are all too scared to actually attack him on the fact that he’s going to prison for trying to rig the election.

In the history of the world, has there ever been an easier line of attack handed to a political opponent? But they are all cowards.

killernova, 8 months ago

Cowards? Or secretly want to follow in his footsteps, hoping they will succeed where Donald failed. And why shouldn’t they? America is clearly crumbling from within, ripe for the taking - if you can take it. They’re not scared, they’re evil and calculating and hungry for power. It’s a sickening corporate sponsered puppet show.

oce, 8 months ago

They probably could use the same populist rethoric to get as many votes without doing all the dumb avoidable crimes Trump have been doing.

OldWoodFrame, 8 months ago

I don’t think the day before Super Tuesday is appropriate, it should be months earlier but a week later (or earlier) would be more appropriate than March 4th.

I just don’t love the disruption to the political calendar being so direct. It’s not like we’re getting a guilty verdict the first day so it’s just ginning up the news cycle away from whatever might be topical and relevant and back to Trump and his legal woes.

We don’t know for sure what March will be like. Maybe some folks drop out and Trump isn’t leading by as much by then, and the challenger has a positive news cycle only to be drowned out by this court case again. It’s not inconceivable that this helps or hurts Trump on Super Tuesday, and I’d rather just avoid either if given the option. Let it be a court case.

DrWeevilJammer, 8 months ago

Republicans have only themselves to blame. They repealed the FCC Fairness Doctrine in 1987 and the personal attack and political editorial rules in 2000, all so they could go after their political opponents with impunity.

The repeal of the Fairness Doctrine did a lot of damage to political discourse, but it was nothing compared to Citizens United. That Supreme Court decision not only gave the right of free speech to corporations with no legal requirement to disclose their funding, but it also nullified the Federal Election Commission rules about broadcasting attack ads within a certain period of time before federal elections and primaries.

Citizens United is a right-wing political group formed in 1988 to produce attack ads and “documentaries” attacking their political opponents. They made a documentary length attack ad about Hilary Clinton that they wanted to air in 2008, which was an election year, and Clinton had announced her candidacy in 2007.

The Citizens United group knew that they wouldn’t be able to show their “documentary”, so they sued the FEC on the grounds that the rules were a violation of the free speech rights of corporations, a concept that had previously only been applicable to actual human individuals. And the conservative Supreme Court majority, made up of proud Constitutionalists agreed.

FYI, corporations do not appear in the Constitution, and Jefferson had this to say:

I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country.

And the final turd on top of the shit sandwich Trump will be eating soon: the President of Citizens United resigned in 2016…to become Trump’s deputy campaign manager.

OldWoodFrame, 8 months ago

…None of that has anything to do with the timing of a court case.