The Georgia prosecutor is seeking a hearing date for the trial of Trump and 18 others in the election process in March

ATLANTA (AP) – The Atlanta prosecutor, who this week secured indictments against former President Donald Trump and 18 others, plans to take the case to court in March.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said in a scheduling order filed with the court Wednesday that she wanted the trial to begin March 4.

That would result in the process starting a day before Super Tuesday, when most delegates are at stake in the primary race to decide the next Republican presidential nominee. Around 14 primary elections are scheduled to take place across the country, from California and Texas to Massachusetts and Maine. Trump is currently his party’s dominant lead candidate.

Trump and 18 others were indicted by a Fulton County grand jury Monday. They are accused of committing various crimes to keep Trump in power after his election loss to Democrat Joe Biden in 2020.

Former President Trump faces racketeering charges in Georgia election interference case (CNN, POOL, GA SENATE CHAMBERS, WPIX, FBI, WABC, WXIA, NATIONAL A

Willis also suggests that the arraignment of the defendants should take place during the week of September 5th. She had already set a deadline of 12:00 noon on August 25 for all defendants to present themselves at the Fulton County Jail for record. That seems to indicate that Trump and the others could make two trips to Georgia in the coming weeks, first for a surrender and later for an indictment.

Trump’s Georgia-based legal team did not immediately respond to a text message seeking comment.

The relatively tight schedule Willis is proposing could be complicated by pre-trial maneuvering by the defendants. On Tuesday, former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows’ attorneys filed a summary motion to transfer the case from state court to federal court. They said any actions he took served his role in the White House, suggesting the constitution makes him immune from prosecution. A federal judge Wednesday scheduled a hearing on the matter for August 28.

There is widespread speculation that Trump, and perhaps others, may be attempting to take the case to federal court.

The proposed order also proposes other time limits for the case, including disclosure and filing time limits. Willis’ filing states that she selected the dates “in light of defendant Donald Trump’s other criminal and civil cases pending in the courts of our sister sovereigns,” and states that this schedule does not conflict with those already scheduled hearings and hearing dates of other courts.

Trump is scheduled to stand trial in New York in March in a separate case involving dozens of state charges over falsifying business records related to an alleged hush money payment to a porn actor. He is scheduled to face charges in May in the federal case brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith for illegally hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate and frustrating government efforts to return them.

And Smith’s team is targeting a Jan. 2 hearing date in the federal case over Trump’s efforts to overturn the election.

The detailed indictment against Georgia, running nearly 100 pages, uses the state’s protections act to accuse Trump and others of conspiracy and details dozens of measures they allegedly took to keep him in power.

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