Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis made a surprise decision to ask for an Oct. 23 trial start for former President Donald Trump and 18 other defendants in her sweeping racketeering case after co-defendant Kenneth Chesebro asked for a speedy trial.
Willis has said since the indictment earlier this month that her team of prosecutors would need roughly six months before a trial can start in the landmark case against Trump, the current 2024 Republican front-runner, and his co-defendants. Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott responded on Thursday afternoon, agreeing to the early trial start for Chesebro alone, for now.
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McAfee also included a scheduling order for Chesebro’s case. He wrote that Sept. 6 would mark his arraignment and that discovery from all parties would be due by Sept. 20. He said that “all motions” are due by Sept. 27 and that a pretrial conference would follow two days later on Sept. 29.
The district attorney rapidly changed her schedule for a trial after the latest motion from Chesebro.
“Without waiving any objection as to the sufficiency of Defendant Kenneth John Chesebro’s filing, the State requests that this Court specially set the trial in this case to commence on October 23, 2023,” Willis wrote in a four-page filing, asking for all 19 defendants to be tried on that date.
Trump’s legal counsel responded after Willis’s filing, saying he opposed her proposal and would seek to “sever” his case from Chesebro’s case.
“President Trump further respectfully puts the Court on notice that he requests the Court set a scheduling conference at its earliest convenience so he can be heard on the State’s motions for entry of pretrial scheduling order and to specially set trial,” Trump’s filing reads.
Under Georgia law, defendants who make demands for a speedy trial in Fulton County are supposed to go to trial within four months. If not, it could be grounds for dismissing the charges altogether.
Trump’s filing states his intent, and potentially previews filings from other defendants, to sever the case from Chesebro’s matter, as no other defendants have requested a speedy trial.
An attorney for Chesebro, Scott R. Grubman, told the Washington Examiner his client “will be prepared to move forward with trial for whatever date the Court ultimately sets.”
Chesebro, who worked with local officials for the GOP in Georgia to organize an alternate slate of electors, made a subsequent filing asking for an expedited arraignment to get his trial started quickly in the criminal case.
Arraignments in the case are already slated to start next week and run through Sept. 8, though McAfee hasn’t indicated who will go first or when.
Jeff Brickman, an Atlanta-based attorney, told the Washington Examiner that Chesebro’s filings are a “strategic decision” that is “not done that often.
“What they’ve decided to do, the defense, is to, one could say, either calling the state’s bluff or trying to catch them off guard, or [they don’t] believe that the state would be as ready as they would down the road,” Brickman said.
“It’s a strategic decision that’s made, and you just always need to be careful what you ask for,” Brickman added.
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The Washington Examiner previously spoke with multiple legal experts, both in and outside the Atlanta area, who said even Willis’s original request to begin the trial in March could be idealistic, especially because there’s another high-profile racketeering case in the same jurisdiction that has taken more than eight months for a jury selection.
Willis has said she intends to try all 19 defendants simultaneously. Trump is slated to surrender himself in Fulton County on Thursday.
