The trial date is being postponed, according to the attorney for Jeffrey Clark in the Georgia case against former President Trump.
In the continuing Georgia racketeering case, Clark, a former Justice Department officer, was listed as one of the 18 co-defendants.
His attorney, Harry MacDougald, wrote in a court filing Thursday that District Attorney Fani Willis’ rushed schedule for the trial “could be interpreted as an attempt to stake out a place at the head of the line of prosecutors seeking the ‘prize’ of trying the former President before the 2024 presidential election.”
After a Fulton County grand jury announced charges, Willis gave a press conference late Monday and stated that she wanted a trial to start within six months.
The Fulton County district attorney gave Trump and the other 18 co-defendants until noon on August 25 to turn themselves in to law police, according to the indictment.
“To our knowledge, not one of the 19 defendants named in the indictment has been served with any warrant, taken into custody, had a first appearance, or been arraigned, or waived arraignment,” MacDougald wrote in the Thursday objection.
“Since the District Attorney’s Office made no attempt to confer with opposing counsel for any of the 19 Defendants before filing its Motion, it has no earthly idea whether any of the proposed dates fit the calendars of any, much less all of the dozens of busy attorneys who will be involved in representing the Defendants,” the objection continued.
Racketeering and a criminal effort to make false claims are both counts against Clark.
Additionally, Trump’s legal team is attempting to postpone the trial date until April 2026.
Years after the Justice Department’s suggestion for the trial to start on January 2, 2024, the suggested date would be appropriate.
Trump’s attorneys claim in a petition that the lengthy delay is required due to the “massive” (11.5 million pages) amount of evidence they must evaluate as well as the unusual nature of the case. They claimed that in order to reach the planned trial date from the Justice Department, they would need to go through nearly 100,000 documents every day.
