The latest on the Trump-related investigations

Judge Tanya Chutkan oversees Friday's hearing in Washington, DC.

In a hearing Friday, US District Judge Tanya Chutkan set the tone for how she will preside over the 2020 election subversion case against former President Donald Trump.

Chutkan kicked off the hearing – the first in the case before her and one that took place in her courtroom at DC federal courthouse – noting that while Trump’s rights as a criminal defendant would be protected, his First Amendment right to free speech was “not absolute.”

The hearing focused on what limits would be placed on how the former president can handle the evidence prosecutors will be turning over to him.

The judge closed the hearing with a promise that the case would advance like any normal proceeding in the criminal justice system, but warned that the more “inflammatory” statements were made by a party, the quicker she would need to move toward a trial to preserve a fair jury.

“It is a bedrock principle of the judicial process in this country,” she said, while quoting precedent, “that legal trials are not like elections, to be won through the use of the meeting hall, the radio and the newspaper.”

“This case is no exception,” she said.

Over the course of the proceedings, she expressed some skepticism to the arguments made by the office of special counsel Jack Smith, siding with Trump on at least a few matters related to the protective order over evidence that was the subject of Friday’s hearing. Addressing a submission from the government that she refused to let be filed under seal, she also emphasized a need for public transparency into the docket.

The hearing, roughly an hour and 40 minutes long, was the first in the case before Chutkan. She has already shown a habit of responding quickly and tersely on the docket to debates between the parties over scheduling. An Obama appointee and former public defender who has overseen several cases regarding the events of January 6, 2021, Chutkan has been outspoken about the harm the US Capitol attack caused to American democracy.

Chutkan later issued a protective order barring Trump from publicly disclosing sensitive information in the case.

Trump pleaded not guilty to four criminal charges related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election last week, and the judge cautioned lawyers for Trump, who did not attend the hearing, about any public statements by their client that could possibly intimidate of witnesses.

Read more about today’s hearing here.

US District Judge Tanya Chutkan has issued a protective order barring former President Donald Trump from publicly disclosing “sensitive information” – including witness interviews – that’s turned over to his legal team by special counsel investigators in the 2020 election interference case. 

While Chutkan declined a broader protective order sought by prosecutors who wanted to lock down all evidence turned over in discovery, she did restrict how Trump and his legal team can handle and publicly share sensitive information.

Her order defines sensitive information as grand jury secrets, including subpoenaed information and witness testimony; transcripts and recordings of witness interviews done by investigators outside of the grand jury; evidence obtained through court-approved searches, and sealed orders related to the investigation. The evidence Trump cannot share publicly also includes material from other government agencies, such as the Secret Service. 

Prosecutors say the sensitive information represents a large amount of the evidence they’ve collected.

The order also specifies that while Trump can review the evidence unaccompanied by a lawyer and take notes about it, he cannot put in those notes any especially personal identifying information and cannot make photos, copies or recordings of the evidence.

During a hearing Friday in federal court in Washington, DC., prosecutors had pushed for even stricter rules, while Trump’s lawyers expressed concerns that the former president would inadvertently violate a protective order when making political statements on the 2024 campaign trail.

Chutkan repeatedly raised concerns about witness intimidation if certain restrictions were not imposed on what Trump could disclose from the evidence prosecutors hand over.

Arguing in favor of more limitations for when Trump viewed the sensitive discovery himself, prosecutor Thomas Windom said that the “defense counsel has a certain level of trust in the defendant that the government does not.”

In another exchange, Windom told the judge that the investigators routinely recorded witness interviews done outside of the grand jury and that there “hundreds of recordings of witness interviews.”

He warned that, without the restriction, there was nothing stopping Trump from publishing small snippets of the interviews and potentially tainting the jury pool.

When Trump attorney John Lauro took a turn to argue, he did not get far with the judge.

“You are conflating what your client needs to do to defend himself and what he wants to do politically,” she told him. “And what your client does to defend himself has to happen in this courtroom, not on the internet.”

Lauro put forward a hypothetical of Trump making a statement while debating his former Vice President Mike Pence – who is also running for the White House now and is a key witness in the criminal case – that overlapped with what’s in discovery.

The judge told Lauro the example wasn’t helping his arguments.

“He is a criminal defendant. He is going to have constraints the same as any defendant. This case is going to proceed in a normal order,” Chutkan said, referring to Trump.

Former President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, last month.

US District Judge Tanya Chutkan closed her first hearing in the 2020 election subversion case with a warning shot to former President Donald Trump: the more inflammatory statements he makes connected to the case, the greater the urgency will be to move the case quickly to trial.

The warning hit on what have been the two major flashpoints in the January 6 prosecution against Trump so far: what he can say publicly about the evidence prosecutors turn over to the defense and how quickly the proceedings should move to a trial.

The judge’s closing words also included a vow that the case will advance like any legal procedure in the criminal justice system.

“The defense has reiterated at length Mr. Trump’s First Amendment right to speak about this case and any evidence in it,” she said, adding that Trump will be afforded all the rights of any criminal defense and it will take an effort to avoid “a carnival atmosphere.”

She warned that “even ambiguous statement from either party or counsel … can threaten the process.”

The more a party makes “inflammatory” statements that could taint a jury pool, she said, “the greater the urgency will be that we proceed to trial quickly” to ensure a fair trial.

More background: Federal prosecutors are seeking to start to the trial on January 2, 2024, days before the anniversary of the attack on the US Capitol and the Iowa caucuses, according to a filing Thursday. They also propose to have jury selection done in December, before the winter holidays.

Trump objected to the proposal in a Truth Social post, saying any trial in the cases against him should wait until after the presidential election.

The judge will ultimately decide the trial start date, a decision she is likely to make by the end of this month.

CNN’s Katelyn Polantz contributed reporting to this post.

US District Judge Tanya Chutkan speaks to Trump attorney John Lauro during Friday's hearing.

During a back-and-forth over whether former President Donald Trump would be able to view materials in the 2020 election interference case outside the presence of an attorney, Judge Tanya Chutkan pushed back against suggestions that the Justice Department’s case against Trump is political. 

Trump’s attorney John Lauro repeatedly suggested the Justice Department could be attempting to hurt Trump’s ability to campaign in the 2024 election and said the former president would be “bogged down” by certain aspects of a protective order over discovery in the case.

During Friday’s hearing, Chutkan repeatedly said she would handle the case as any other.

The hearing has concluded, and the judge is expected to issue an order soon.

Former President Donald Trump has “shown a desire to hold onto material that he knows he shouldn’t have,” prosecutor Tom Windom said during Friday's hearing.

A special counsel prosecutor referred to Donald Trump’s criminal case in Florida during the hearing Friday, saying that the former president has shown a “desire” to keep documents he should not have.

The comment came during a disagreement over whether Trump would be allowed to review sensitive evidence in the 2020 election interference case without one of his lawyers present. 

Prosecutor Tom Windom asked US District Judge Tanya Chutkan to limit Trump’s ability to review that discovery alone, saying that if he were alone, Trump could “elect to photocopy or otherwise reproduce, take a photo” of information that cannot be shared publicly.

Trump has “shown a desire to hold onto material that he knows he shouldn’t have,” Windom said during the disagreement.

When defense lawyer John Lauro responded that Trump would abide by any rules the judge imposed on handling sensitive evidence, Windom doubled down, saying that “defense counsel has a certain level of trust in the defendant that the government does not.”

The hearing in Washington, DC, concerns the criminal case over Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. The special counsel’s other case concerning his handling of classified documents is in Florida.  

Trump attorneys John Lauro, left, and Todd Blanche, right, arrive at the courthouse on Friday.

US District Judge Tanya Chutkan said she would adopt rules proposed by prosecutors to limit who on Donald Trump’s team can access the evidence in the 2020 election interference case, rejecting the former president’s request that the language be broadened so that volunteers and other people not directly employed by the defense team could also review discovery. 

Trump lawyer John Lauro tried to push back, telling the judge, “In order to defend this case, we have to have more help.”

The judge held firm. She told the attorney that she could not allow “anyone, including individuals who I might note could be unindicted co-conspirators, to have access to discovery.”

Prosecutors had argued in a court filing that the Trump’s proposed language for who could access the discovery could allow access to unidentified coconspirators in the case who are also attorneys. The judge repeated her concerns that the Trump request was too broad.

Former President Donald Trump gets ready to board a plane in Arlington, Virginia, last week.

Judge Tanya Chutkan issued a warning to Donald Trump — pointing to his release conditions in the 2020 election interference case that already prohibit the former president from intimidating witnesses.

Whether or not Trump’s public statements are covered by the protective order, she said, if they result in the intimidation of a witness or the obstruction of justice, “I will be scrutinizing them very carefully.”

Trump’s lawyer John Lauro said that “President Trump will scrupulously abide by his conditions of release.”

Chutkan issued the warning to Trump after siding with him on a dispute over the scope of the protective order.

Judge Tanya Chutkan speaks during Friday's hearing.

Judge Tanya Chutkan had a pointed exchange with Donald Trump’s lawyer about what the former president and 2024 candidate should be allowed to say about the evidence that is turned over to him in the special counsel’s 2020 election interference case.

She raised the prospect that Trump’s public commentary about the evidence in the case could intimidate witnesses. Chutkan asked what if Trump was “denigrating a witness” to a “worldwide audience.”

Laura said: “You may have Mr. Pence in mind?”

Chutkan said she meant “any witness” and then said: “The defendant’s desire to conduct a campaign, to respond to political opponents, has to yield.”

Lauro tried to pivot to how the prosecutors had set up what would be deemed sensitive evidence under the proposed protective order.

“No one disagrees that any speech that intimidates a witness would be prohibited, what we are talking about is fair use of information,” Lauro said, putting forward a hypothetical that Trump is publicly remarking on something from his personal memory that is also evidence in the case.

Lauro said that “in a heated moment” someone might say something that prosecutors had put a flag on.

The judge told Lauro that she would “ensure that your client is entitled to all the rights” he is afforded.

Chutktan said that “the existence of a political campaign is not going to have a bearing” on how she handles the case.

“I intend to keep politics out of this,” she said.

Former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Windham, New Hampshire, on Tuesday.

Before digging into arguments over the discovery rules in the 2020 election subversion case, federal Judge Tanya Chutkan previewed her approach to the First Amendment, stating that former President Donald Trump has a right to free speech but that right is “not absolute.” 

“Without a protective order, a party could release information that could taint the jury pool, intimidate witnesses or others involved in some aspect of the case, or otherwise interfere with the process of justice,” she added.

Some background on the case: Trump has already said he will be asking for Chutkan to recuse herself from the case, writing on social media that there is “no way” she will provide a fair trial.

Federal prosecutors are asking for a protective order restricting what Trump and his team can do with evidence shared with them through discovery in the 2020 election case. Prosecutors point to Trump’s public statements that they say could have a “harmful chilling effect on witnesses or adversely affect the fair administration of justice in this case.”

Prosecutors pointed to Trump’s Truth Social post last week that read: “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!”

Chutkan denied a deadline extension request from Trump’s legal team to respond to the protective order request.

A look outside the courthouse where today's hearing is taking place.

Federal Judge Tanya Chutkan questioned the prosecutors’ arguments about the protective order in the 2020 election subversion case against former President Donald Trump.

She asked Windom about the restrictions the special counsel’s office was seeking to impose on even non-sensitive evidence.

“If I understand what you are saying, your position is that even non-sensitive information could be used for witness intimidation and reputation damage? If so why wouldn’t it be sensitive?” she asked.

During the back-and-forth, Windom said that “the larger issue here” is that the Trump team “has broadcast their strategy, which is to try this case outside of this courtroom, and the court should address that.”

“I plan to,” Chutkan said.

US District Judge Tanya Chutkan signaled that she plans to issue a protective order soon after this morning’s hearing, laying out the rules for the handling of evidence handed over by prosecutors to former President Donald Trump’s team in the 2020 election interference case.

Chutkan laid out her plans at the start of Friday’s hearing — the first in front of the federal judge in special counsel Jack Smith’s criminal case against the former president. She indicated she would move quickly to resolve the disputes over the scope of the protective order. 

She said she would be able to rule on immediately some of the disagreements, while she had questions about other aspects of what each side is seeking. She stated her plans to then issue the protective order soon after the hearing. 

She also said, generally speaking, she does not always keep to the briefing timelines outlined by local court rules, and that sometimes she pushes up or pushes back briefing deadlines “when it serves interests and efficiency.”

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, right, talks with a member of her team last year during proceedings to seat a special purpose grand jury.

The Atlanta-area district attorney investigating former President Donald Trump and his allies has been lining up witnesses to appear before a grand jury in order to craft a narrative around how Trump and his supporters tried to reverse the results of the 2020 presidential election in the Peach State, according to people familiar with the matter.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is expected to spend two days presenting her case before a grand jury next week.

Willis could seek several indictments as she eyes a sweeping racketeering case that could cast Trump and several of his associates as operating as a criminal enterprise in their endeavors to upend Georgia’s election results.

If Willis proceeds with racketeering charges, “I think she is going to tell a story,” said Georgia State law professor Clark D. Cunningham. “The story of how one person at the top – the former president – really marshaled an army of people to accomplish his goal which was to stay in power through any means.”

The witnesses Willis has subpoenaed include former Republican Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, former Georgia Democratic state Sen. Jen Jordan and independent journalist George Chidi. All of them previously testified before a special purpose grand jury that was tasked with investigating the Trump case and heard from more than 75 witnesses.

But Georgia law is unusual in that special purpose grand juries – which have broad investigative powers – are not permitted to issue indictments. When the subpoenaed witnesses appear before the regular grand jury, those grand jurors will hear the witnesses’ testimony for the first time with a narrower purpose at hand: to approve or reject indictments.

The witnesses that have been summoned to testify speak to various prongs of Willis’ investigation, from conspiracy-laden presentations that Trump’s associates – including former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani – made before Georgia lawmakers in 2020, to the convening of fake electors to try to thwart President Joe Biden’s victory in the state. She can also rely on her internal investigators to present evidence that was previously collected by the special purpose grand jury.

In a case of this magnitude, “probably the indictment has been drafted and reviewed for months,” Michael J. Moore, former US attorney for the Middle District of Georgia, told CNN.

If there’s anything left to be done, Moore said it was likely final tweaks and finishing touches.

“The indictment, word-for-word, is going to be flyspecked. You’re making sure there are no errors in it,” Moore said. “And you’re making sure you have enough pieces to prove each count.”

Willis’ office declined to comment.

Read more about the case here.

Former President Donald Trump and Judge Tanya Chutkan

After a week of bitter court filings, federal prosecutors and Donald Trump’s defense lawyers are scheduled to appear in Washington, DC, federal court Friday morning for the first hearing before the judge assigned to oversee the special counsel’s election subversion case against the former president.

Judge Tanya Chutkan has already shown a habit of responding quickly and tersely on the docket to debates between the parties over scheduling. An Obama appointee and former public defender who has overseen several cases regarding the events of January 6, 2021, Chutkan has been outspoken about the harm the US Capitol attack caused to American democracy.

Friday’s hearing could set the tone for how the case against Trump will proceed and how Chutkan will manage what has already been contentious feuding between the parties and test her abilities to keep the proceedings on track.

How Chutkan handles the case is likely to serve as a contrast to US District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee in Florida who has been in less of a rush to move proceedings along in the classified documents case against the former president. She has already been heavily scrutinized for what critics say is a favorable treatment of the former president in a previous lawsuit Trump brought last year challenging aspects of the Justice Department’s investigation.

Trump pleaded not guilty to four criminal charges related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election last week. The special counsel said Thursday it wants the trial to begin on January 2, 2024, a date Trump’s team is expected to oppose.

Scope of protective order over evidence: In Friday’s hearing, lawyers are slated to debate the scope of a protective order governing evidence that prosecutors say proves Trump conspired to overturn the election, interrupt Congress and take away every American citizen’s right to have their vote counted.

Protective orders are a normal part of any criminal case and are typically approved without much drama. In this case, however, the special counsel’s office and Trump’s defense lawyers have battled in court filings over what Trump will be able to discuss publicly.

Among the restrictions the prosecutors are requesting in this case is a rule barring Trump’s lawyers from providing copies of “sensitive” evidence to the former president, including witness interviews and grand jury transcripts from the dozens of witnesses in Trump’s circle who have spoken to prosecutors.

To make their point, prosecutors pointed to Trump’s social media posts since he was indicted last week, including a vague and ominous Truth Social post reading “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!” Trump also slammed Chutka.

The posts, prosecutors said, emphasized the need for a protective order that would limit whether Trump can discuss or share evidence on his social media accounts during the course of the legal case.

For their part, Trump’s legal team proposed less restrictive rules, alleging that prosecutors are on a politically motivated campaign to restrict his First Amendment rights. His defense lawyers pushed back on prosecutors’ definition of “sensitive” material that should be subject to additional rules, and asked to expand who can access certain evidentiary materials.

If Trump were to violate any eventual protective order Chutkan issues, he could be held in contempt.

It’s been eight years since he rode down the escalator in Trump Tower and more than two years since the January 6, 2021, insurrection, but the legal drama surrounding Donald Trump has never been more intense.

The former president has already been indicted three times this year, and a potential indictment looms in Georgia.

Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis oversaw a special grand jury investigating what Trump or his allies may have done in their efforts to overturn Biden’s victory in the state. Willis, a Democrat, is considering bringing conspiracy and racketeering charges.

Here are key things to know about the former president’s three indictments:

Hush-money payments: In New York, a hush-money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels resulted in Trump’s indictment by a Manhattan grand jury over his alleged role in the scheme – the first time in American history that a current or former president was criminally charged. He was charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.

The former president surrendered and was placed under arrest April 4, before he was arraigned in a historic and unprecedented court appearance, at which he pleaded not guilty.

Mar-a-Lago documents: Special counsel Jack Smith is overseeing the Justice Department’s criminal investigations into the retention of national defense information at Trump’s resort and into parts of the January 6, 2021, insurrection.

Trump was initially indicted on, and has pleaded not guilty to, 37 federal charges related to the investigation of documents that were allegedly mishandled when they were taken to Mar-a-Lago in Florida after Trump left office. Smith charged Trump with three additional counts in a superseding indictment.

A judge has set a May 2024 start date for the trial.

2020 election and January 6: Smith’s purview also includes the period after Trump’s 2020 election loss to Joe Biden and leading up to the insurrection at the US Capitol.

A federal grand jury indicted Trump on four criminal counts in the investigation: conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding; and conspiracy against rights. Trump pleaded not guilty to the federal charges.

Read more.

Federal prosecutors who’ve brought the 2020 election interference criminal case against Donald Trump are seeking to start to the trial on January 2, 2024, days before the anniversary of the attack on the US Capitol and the Iowa caucuses.

The special counsel’s office said in a filing Thursday that its presentation of evidence in the trial would take “no longer than four to six weeks,” meaning that Trump may need to spend his weekdays in court before a jury in the crucial first two months of a presidential election year, as primary voting begins for Republicans.

The Iowa caucuses are scheduled for January 15.

Judge Tanya Chutkan of the federal court in Washington, DC, ultimately will decide the trial start date, a decision she is likely to make by the end of this month.

Trump’s team won’t need to tell the court their preferred date for a trial until next week. But in Trump’s other federal case related to classified records in Florida after his presidency, they wanted a trial to be put off until after the presidential election. That trial date has been set for May, and Trump has other trial dates in lawsuits and a New York criminal case related to his business records set throughout the first half of next year.

The January 6 federal case may ultimately be a quicker road to trial than the Florida federal documents case, given that Trump is the only defendant at this time and much of what’s charged in the indictment is already public and not classified.

Prosecutors say that Trump “was determined to remain in power” after losing the 2020 election, and that he and six unindicted co-conspirators orchestrated a plot to overturn the results on and leading up to January 6, 2021. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Donald Trump’s body-man Walt Nauta pleaded not guilty to new criminal charges brought by special counsel Jack Smith in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case, while the arraignment for his co-defendant Carlos De Oliveira has been postponed because he still doesn’t have a Florida lawyer.

De Oliveira, the property manager at Trump’s Florida resort, and Nauta appeared in federal court in Fort Pierce, Florida. They have been charged with multiple offenses related to Trump’s allegedly unlawful retention of documents after leaving office, including classified material.

Trump and Nauta were first indicted in this case in June. De Oliveira was added as a co-defendant in a superseding indictment last month, along with new charges against Trump and Nauta. The former president previously waived his appearance in court and his lawyers officially entered a not guilty plea.

De Oliveira is now scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday, August 15. His lawyer said in court that he hopes to have appropriate paperwork filed tomorrow.

The charges Nauta and De Oliveira face include making false statements, conspiracy to obstruct justice and corruptly altering, destroying, mutilating, or concealing documents.

According to the superseding indictment, in the summer of 2022, Nauta – at Trump’s direction – helped to conceal documents from a grand jury subpoena by moving boxes, some of which contained classified information, out of a storage room which was later searched by a Trump attorney to comply with the subpoena.

De Oliveira, according to the indictment, helped Nauta move some but not all of the boxes back to the storage room prior to the search. The rest, however, were kept at Trump’s residence, away from his attorney’s search.

The indictment also alleges that Nauta and De Oliveira had asked an employee if they could delete security footage at Mar-a-Lago. The two men also made false statements to investigators regarding their involvement in moving Trump’s boxes, prosecutors allege.

In a separate development, Nauta has argued that he should be allowed to review the classified evidence in special counsel Jack Smith’s documents case.

Prosecutors in Georgia have aggressively investigated whether former President Donald Trump broke the law while trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat in the hotly contested state.

In shocking phone calls, Trump privately pressured Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and another official to “recalculate” the numbers and “find” enough votes to let him win.

Frustrated by the lack of fraud investigations, Trump ousted the US attorney in Atlanta. On the day Congress was set to certify the Electoral College results, Trump held an incendiary rally and incited a mob of supporters to attack the Capitol, temporarily delaying the process.

After the insurrection was quashed later that night, the electoral votes were counted and Biden officially became President-elect.

Here’s a timeline of some of Trump’s efforts to try to overturn the election in the state:

December 29: Raffensperger announces that the audit in Cobb County found no evidence of fraudulent mail-in voting.

Trump says Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and Raffensperger are “stupid,” and calls on them to “allow us to find the crime, and turn the state Republican.” He complains about the signature-matching inquiries. Trump also promotes a conspiracy theory that Raffensperger’s brother works for the Chinese government.

December 30: Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani speaks to a Georgia state Senate subcommittee about alleged election irregularities. Kemp rebukes Giuliani’s conduct during the hearing.

Trump says Kemp “should resign from office.”

January 2: In an hour-long private phone call, Trump pressures Raffensperger to “find” the exact number of votes needed to overturn Biden’s victory. Trump also suggests to Raffensperger that he should publicly announce that he “recalculated” the election results. Raffensperger tells Trump that the election results were accurate.

During the call, Trump also criticizes the US attorney in Atlanta, Byung Pak, calling him a “Never Trumper” without any evidence. CNN later reported that the call occurred after 18 previous attempts by the White House to call Raffensperger’s office. CNN obtained the audio below from a source who was on the call and had direct knowledge of the conversation. Read the full transcript here.

January 3: Trump tweets about the call, saying Raffensperger was “unwilling, or unable” to answer questions about alleged fraud in Georgia. In response, Raffensperger says Trump’s claims are “not true” and that “the truth will come out.” Later, The Washington Post publishes the full recording of the phone call.

January 4: On the eve of Georgia’s special Senate election, Trump holds a rally in Dalton, Georgia, where he pledges to campaign against Kemp and Raffensperger if they run for reelection in 2022. He also falsely claims the election was “rigged” against him.

January 5: A federal judge rejects an attempt by Trump’s campaign to decertify the election results in Georgia.

January 6: Trump mentions “Georgia” 20 times at a rally near the White House. He cites conspiracy theories about alleged irregularities and says election officials “should find those votes” needed to overturn Biden’s victory. He falsely claims Raffensperger and Kemp are “corrupt” and “defrauded us out of a win.”

During the speech, Trump urges the crowd to “fight like hell” and march to the US Capitol to pressure Vice President Mike Pence and lawmakers to block the Electoral College proceedings. Trump supporters storm the Capitol and violently disrupt the formal proceedings to certify Biden’s victory.

After the insurrection is quelled, several House Republicans unsuccessfully try to challenge Georgia’s slate of electors, falsely alleging that the election was “fraudulent.” Georgia’s electoral votes are counted and Biden officially becomes the President-elect.

See the full timeline here.

Former President Donald Trump delivers remarks at a Republican event in Las Vegas last month.

If special counsel Jack Smith has his way, Donald Trump will be spending his weekdays in January in a Washington, DC, courtroom rather than barnstorming ice-bound Iowa and New Hampshire with his closing arguments before the critical first 2024 nominating contests.

Smith on Thursday proposed that a trial over Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election begin on January 2, 2024 – two weeks before the first-in-the-nation Iowa GOP caucuses – provoking an angry eruption from the ex-president. Prosecutors moreover expect their case to take up to six weeks, meaning that Trump’s campaign would be severely disrupted ahead of a Super Tuesday blitz of 16 contests on March 5.

Smith’s bold move on Thursday was the most startling indication yet of how the 2024 election has now become inextricably entangled with Trump’s battle to avoid serial felony convictions. The campaign trail will run as much through various court rooms as through the fabled rituals of an American election year. And the political, electoral and judicial institutions of a nation left internally estranged by Trump’s tumultuous presidency and its polarizing aftermath are now facing yet another of the existential tests that Trump has posed since descending his escalator in 2015.

Prosecutors argued Thursday that a speedy trial was feasible since they were prepared for a swift and fulsome handover of evidence in the discovery process. Furthermore, the events surrounding Trump’s denial of his 2020 election defeat have been in the public domain for years. They also argued that the extraordinary and historic nature of the charges regarding an historic attempt to derail US democracy weighed in favor of moving quickly.

“Most importantly, 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,” Smith’s team told the court.

Given that Trump is the GOP front-runner for the next presidential election, while still denying the legitimacy of the previous one, there is a strong moral argument that the national interest lies in concluding a trial as quickly as is fairly possible. Trump is entitled to be considered innocent until proven guilty, like all criminal defendants. But it is also possible that voters next year could be asked to decide whether the former president, who could theoretically by then be a convicted felon, is fit to swear to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution and the rule of law ahead of a new White House term.

Keep reading the analysis here.

Federal prosecutors have proposed a January 2, 2024, start date for a criminal trial of former President Donald Trump in the special counsel’s case over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Trump’s lawyers still must weigh in with their proposed date, and a judge will ultimately decide. That date would add to an already busy trial schedule for Trump as the former president faces a multitude of legal challenges.

This is his schedule so far:

These dates could change as proceedings continue.