Trump's trial date set for March 4 in federal case charging him with plotting to overturn election

A judge has set a March 4 trial date for Donald Trump in the federal case in Washington charging the former president with trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

US District Judge Tanya Chutkan denied a defense request to push the trial back until April 2026, about a year and a half after the 2024 election, but also sets it later than the January date proposed by Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith.

Chutkan made it clear to both sides at the outset of Monday's status conference that she considered neither proposal acceptable.

“These proposals are obviously very far apart,” she said. “Neither of them is acceptable.”

Trump was charged earlier this month in a four-count indictment with scheming to undo his loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 election.

The federal election subversion prosecution is one of four criminal cases against Trump.

Smith’s team has brought a separate federal case accusing him of illegally retaining classified documents at his Florida property and refusing to give them back. That case is currently set for trial next May 20.

Trump also faces state cases in New York and Georgia.

Manhattan prosecutors have charged him with falsifying business records in connection with a hush money payment to a porn actor who has said she had an extramarital affair with Trump, while prosecutors in Fulton County, Georgia, have charged Trump and 18 others in a racketeering conspiracy aimed at undoing that state’s 2020 election.

Trump, the early front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, surrendered in Thursday in that case, posing for the first mugshot in American history of a former US president.

He has claimed the investigations are politically motivated and are an attempt to damage his chances of winning back the White House.

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