Judge sets Oct. 23 trial date for first defendant in Trump Georgia case

A Fulton County Superior Court judge has set a trial date for the first of 19 defendants in a sweeping racketeering case involving former President Trump over efforts to overturn Georgia’s 2020 presidential election results. 

Judge Scott McAfee ruled that defendant Kenneth Chesebro’s trial will begin on Oct. 23, after the lawyer and key coordinator of the fake electors plot demanded a speedy trial.

Per Georgia’s speedy trial rules, Chesebro’s case would have to be tried before the end of two court terms following his arraignment. He asked the court earlier Thursday to expedite the scheduling of dates for his arraignment, pretrial hearings and trial itself.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis replied to Chesebro’s motion requesting an Oct. 23 start date in Georgia. The date is four months earlier than the one Willis initially suggested for the trial over whether Trump and others participated in a criminal conspiracy after the 2020 election, a timeline legal experts previously told The Hill was ambitious at best.

“You worry it’s going to turn into a circus atmosphere,” Kay Levine, a law professor at Emory University in Atlanta, previously said of the original timetable.

Willis requested that all 19 defendants — not just Chesebro — be tried starting in October, according to a Thursday court filing. McAfee said that his ruling only pertains to Chesebro “at this time.” The judge also set Chesebro’s arraignment for Sept. 6 and said that all discovery is due by Sept. 20.  

If Willis’s proposal to have all the defendants tried in October is accepted by a judge, Trump’s Georgia trial would become the first of his four criminal cases to be heard by a jury. 

A March 25 trial date is set in Trump’s New York hush money case, and a May 20 date is set for the federal case probing his handling of classified documents. 

Special counsel Jack Smith has proposed a trial start date of Jan. 2 in the Washington, D.C., federal case over Trump’s efforts to subvert the 2020 election results — with which Trump’s legal team countered an April 2026 start. 

Later Thursday, Trump’s counsel filed a motion opposing the October trial date, asking to sever his case from Chesebro and “any other co-defendant” who requests a speedy trial. A key strategy in all of the former president’s cases has been to try to delay proceedings until after the 2024 election and beyond. 

Willis has said she has no desire to be “first or last” in prosecuting Trump. But she’s indicated that her office won’t waste time — a signal bolstered by Thursday’s request. 

“We do want to move this case along,” she said when announcing charges earlier this month. 

Updated 4:39 p.m.