Trump lawyers seek 2026 start for federal trial over 2020 election

In a Thursday, Aug. 17 court filing, lawyers for former President Donald Trump requested that his federal trial over alleged illegal efforts to overturn the 2020 election not start until April of 2026. That is more than two years after the Justice Department’s recommended start date of Jan. 2, 2024.

Lawyers for former President Trump argued the delay was warranted due to the “massive” number of documents involved in the case. Prosecutors have already produced more than 11.5 million pages of documents. If the trial were to start in early 2024, Trump’s lawyers would have to review about 100,000 pages per day.

“If we were to print and stack 11.5 million pages of documents, with no gap between pages, at 200 pages per inch, the result would be a tower of paper stretching nearly 5,000 feet into the sky,” Trump lawyers said. “That is taller than the Washington Monument, stacked on top of itself eight times, with nearly a million pages to spare.”

Trump lawyers also cited scheduling conflicts with the other criminal cases Trump is facing. Proposed start dates for those trials include:

• Trump’s Georgia state trial over the 2020 election: March 4, 2024
• Trump’s New York state trial over hush money payments: March 25, 2024
• Trump’s federal trial over classified documents: May 20, 2024

“President Trump must prepare for each of these trials in the coming months,” Trump’s lawyers wrote. “All are independently complex and will require substantial work to defend. Several will likely require President Trump’s presence at some or all trial proceedings.”

The lawyers also argued that the 2026 start was necessary for Trump’s federal trial over the 2020 election because the case concerns unprecedented questions that will take time to sort out.

“No president has ever been charged with a crime for conduct committed while in office. 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,” the lawyers wrote. “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.”

The question of when to start the trial is up to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan. She is expected to set a tentative date at an Aug. 28 court hearing.