Donald Trump indictment: Fani Willis requests Oct. 23 trial start in RICO case
Kaelan Deese
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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 start in the landmark case against Trump, the current 2024 Republican front-runner, and his co-defendants.
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However, the district attorney rapidly changed her schedule after the latest motion from Chesebro, which, if accepted by Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, would mean the trial for the former Trump attorney would begin well ahead of the other defendants in the case, including the former president.
“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.
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.
It is also possible that Chesebro’s trial could be separated from the other 18 defendants in the case, as no others have filed motions for speedy trials.
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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Willis has said she intends to try all 19 defendants simultaneously. Trump is slated to surrender himself in Fulton County on Thursday.
This is a developing story and will be updated.