Im Andrea Mitchell in washington where a federal judge has set a trial date for one of the criminal cases facing donald trump, jack smiths Election Interference Case will begin March 4th Of Next year. That puts it smack in the middle of the 2024 political calendar, just a day before Super Tuesday. Judge chutkan telling the two sides at one point to take the temperature down, as things got really heated in court. The trump attorney arguing President Trump is entitled to a fair trial, this is a request for a speedy trial. Setting a trial date does not depend and should depend on a defendants personal and professional obligations, mr. Trump, like any defendant, will have to make the trial date work regardless of his schedule. Joining me, justice and intelligence correspondent ken dilanian outside the d. C. Courthouse and former u. S. Attorney and law professor, joyce vance. Ken, a march 4th, 2024 trial date has been set. What does it mean for the two sides . Reporter i have to say, andrea
Counts. people who think that doesn t sound reasonable may have never practiced in a rocket docket where judges take the speedy trial act very seriously. but that s what this judge did today. joining us now from outside the d.c. courthouse, former federal prosecutor, glenn kirschner who was inside and listening to the proceedings. we were struck by the judge s no-nonsense handling of the defense arguments, that they maybe argued too much and went too far in arguing for a 2026 trial date. reporter: yeah, i think judge chutkan gave them every opportunity to come back with another proposed trial date that would be more realistic than april 2026, and the defense steadfastly refused to do it. the prosecutor started with a very straightforward, methodical
Proposing. it s pretty clear they wanted to make a record so they could appeal this question down the line. but the judge said that it s in the interest of justice and in the public interest to get this case to trial. the prosecution, molly gaston had a really interesting thing to say about that. she stood up after the defense had made their arguments for delay and she said, this defendant is accused of historic crimes and she said there s an incredibly strong public interest in a jury s prompt consideration of those claims in open court. that s essentially what the judge decided as well, that the public has a right to hear this case before the election, and it s not just the defendant s right to a speedy trial, it s the public s right to a speedy trial. she said the idea that the defense couldn t process all the discovery, 12.8 million documents, really wasn t persuasive to her and she agreed with the prosecution s argument
Recitation of how much discovery has already been provided by the prosecutors, and we learned today that discovery is complete, the fifth batch, the final batch has already been delivered to the defense. the prosecutors talked about how they organized it, how they did keys so that the defense teams would know exactly where to look, how these were searchable records that were provided by the government. and then the lead defense counsel sort of stood up, he started loud, and he only got louder. now, he was passionately arguing that he and his team need more time to prepare than the january 2nd proposed trial date from jack smith and his team. but the judge had to twice tell him to take the temperature down. that s a quote. and he did, to his credit. but she continued to ask him, please provide me with an alternative, a more realistic proposed trial date. he refused to do it, and i think
What you see today with the racist killings at the same time on saturday that you were out at the mall, to have that kind of a manifesto. i want to say in defense of martin luther king jr, martin luther king jr didn t need me or in else to draft his speeches. he was totally capable, brilliant, okay? the only thing is that he the two sources of income, the speaks fees that he got and mail-in solicitations. so if you re speaking four days a week, it s hard for you you know, he just did a speech. i remember exactly, he was invited to be a speaker for the convention of the national maritime union on a wednesday. he told me, he says, clarence, i don t know what to do with this. i said, what do you mean?