Trump proposing April 2026 trial in federal Jan. 6 indictment

Former President Trump’s lawyers are proposing an April 2026 trial in the federal case over his efforts to block the transfer of power after the 2020 election.

The Trump team’s suggested start date falls more than two years after the Justice Department’s proposal of Jan. 2, 2024, which the former president’s lawyers argued is meant to “to deny President Trump and his counsel a fair ability to prepare for trial.”

They pointed to the “enormous and growing” amount of discovery in the case, the complex and unusual nature of the charges and the defendant, the former president’s stacked legal schedule and the standard timeline of jury-tried cases in arguing for a 2026 start date.

Special counsel Jack Smith’s office has produced 11.5 million pages of discovery so far, Trump’s attorneys said.

“To put 11.5 million pages in some perspective, we began downloading the government’s initial production on August 13, 2023,” they wrote in Thursday’s filing. “Two days later, it was still downloading.”

“Nonetheless, even assuming we could begin reviewing the documents today, we would need to proceed at a pace of 99,762 pages per day to finish the government’s initial production by its proposed date for jury selection,” they added. “That is the entirety of Tolstoy’s War and Peace, cover to cover, 78 times a day, every day, from now until jury selection.”

Trump’s lawyers also noted that the case is particularly unusual given that the defendant is a former president currently campaigning for the White House in a race that appears likely to pit him against the current president.

Trump already has a packed court schedule as well, with a New York civil trial scheduled for October, a defamation trial scheduled for January, a New York criminal case scheduled for March and a federal case in Florida scheduled for May, they argued.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has also asked for a March trial date after a grand jury handed up an indictment against the former president and 18 others earlier this week over their efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia.

However, prosecutors with Smith’s office argued in their filing last week that the Jan. 6 case requires a speedy trial given its significance.

“[A] January 2 trial date would vindicate the public’s strong interest in a speedy trial — an interest guaranteed by the Constitution and federal law in all cases, but of particular significance here, where the defendant, a former president, is charged with conspiring to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election, obstruct the certification of the election results, and discount citizens’ legitimate votes,” they said.

Several conservative legal experts endorsed the Jan. 2, 2024, start date in an amicus brief Monday, arguing that the trial’s repercussions on American democracy “could not be any more profound.”