- Donald Trump won’t be tried in Georgia on October 23rd
- Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro asked for speedy trial, given Oct. 23 date
- But Georgia judge ruled cases can be tried separately despite Fani Willis’ bid to try all co-defendants together
A Georgia judge ruled on Thursday that Donald Trump and 16 others will be tried separately from Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro, who are set to go to trial next month in the case that centers on an alleged scheme to overturn the 2020 election results in that state.
Powell and Chesebro had filed demands for a speedy trial, and Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee had set their trial to begin October 23.
The former president and the other defendants asked to be tried separately from the two, with some arguing they would not be ready in time for an October trial.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis was pushing to try all 19 co-defendants together in what she says was a massive conspiracy to take away Joe Biden’s election victory in Georgia.
McAfee cited the tight timetable, among other issues, as a factor in his decision to separate Trump and 16 others from Powell and Chesebro.
‘The precarious ability of the Court to safeguard each defendant’s due process rights and ensure adequate pretrial preparation on the current accelerated track weighs heavily, if not decisively, in favor of severance,’ the judge wrote.
McAfee also noted the courthouse ‘simply contained no courtroom adequately large enough to hold all 19 defendants, their multiple attorneys and support staff, the sheriff’s deputies, court personnel, and the State’s prosecutorial team.’
He noted that it may be necessary to further divide the remaining co-defendants into smaller groups for trial.
McAfee didn’t set a trial date for Trump and the remaining 16, but the timeline he established in Thursday’s court order means they wouldn’t go on trial before at least December.
He did say that any defendant who does not waive their right to speedy trial before October 23 will ‘immediately’ join that trial. Trump has already waived his right to a speedy trial.
Chesebro and Powell had sought to be tried separately from each other, but the judge also denied that request.
Some of the other co-defendants – like Rudy Giuliani – had sought to distance themselves from Powell, who was one of the most vocal of Trump allies when it came to pushing baseless conspiracy theories linking foreign governments to election interferences.
Chesebro and Powell, along with all the other co-defendants, have pleaded not guilty to all the charges in Willis’ sweeping racketeering indictment for alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia.