In a recent filing with the U.S. Supreme Court seeking the Justices’ early intervention in a dispute arising from a criminal case brought against former President Donald Trump, lead prosecutor Jack Smith and his team criticize the ex-president’s already revealed interest in arguably obnoxious delays. Specifically, they singled out a previous push from Trump’s team to hold trial all the way in 2026 — years into the future.
Prosecutors were using those past developments in the case to characterize the Trump team’s demands around the timing of proceedings as generally out of line. Trump is opposing the early intervention of the Supreme Court in the presently unfolding dispute over whether he holds wide-ranging legal protections by virtue of his time in office that should stop the January 6-related proceedings.
“But respondent has sought extraordinary delay,” prosecutors argued to the Supreme Court. “When the district court requested the parties’ positions on a trial date, respondent proposed to begin trial in April 2026. D. Ct. Doc. 30, at 1 (Aug. 17, 2023). The court rejected respondent’s effort to defer trial for more than two years, as well as the government’s January 2024 proposal, and concluded that the trial should begin on March 4, 2024, to fulfill the public’s “right to a prompt and efficient resolution of this matter.”” The concluding portion also comes, like the first citation in that passage, from earlier proceedings at the District Court level, where federal Judge Tanya Chutkan is presiding.
The critical issue is that trial proceedings remain on hold for as long as arguments over Trump’s claims of nearly total presidential immunity linger in the courts. On a related, similar note, Georgia’s Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis also recently rebuffed in a conversation with The Associated Press the idea that there should be a delay to the criminal proceedings she brought implicating Trump because of his ongoing campaign for president. She has pushed for trial in that case late next summer, though actual scheduling could diverge from that point.
