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After getting a March trial date in his federal election interference case, Donald Trump vowed to “APPEAL!”
But the former president’s all-caps social media pledge runs into a problem: He can’t.
Not successfully, at least.
A trial date is not the sort of thing that gets appealed. If Trump were to launch a legal attack against U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan’s timeline in Washington, he would almost certainly lose.
Indeed, as we’ve examined in the context of Trump's judge in the federal classified documents case, Aileen Cannon, the reason it’s so important which judge gets assigned to a prosecution is that they have vast discretion throughout the life of a case, on matters large and small. Though Trump may have benefited — and may continue to benefit — from the assignment of Cannon in Florida, he’s learning in real-time how judicial assignments can cut both ways.
To be sure, just because Trump can’t successfully formally challenge his March trial date in Washington on appeal, that doesn’t mean it’s an immovable date. Things can, and often do, happen when it comes to trial dates, and all of Trump’s dates across his several cases can shift in the coming months and years for any number of practical or legal reasons.
But as Monday’s hearing with Chutkan showed, Trump should make peace with the fact that he’s going to trial in Washington — if not in March, then likely not too long after.