Two key hearings take place on Friday in Donald Trump’s criminal cases, as Judge Aileen Cannon will consider a trial date for the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case and the disqualification hearing of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis enters its final stage.
The schedules of the many cases brought against the former president at the state and federal levels are getting increasingly entangled. The former president’s plea for “presidential immunity” in his federal election interference case will now be heard by the conservative-leaning US Supreme Court after lower court judges rejected the defence. Mr Trump hopes it could shield him from prosecution.
Oral arguments will take place on 22 April in the middle of the primary election calendar and amid the compressed schedule of court battles as prosecutors try to keep them on track ahead of the 2024 election.
Meanwhile, Illinois has become the third state, alongside Colorado and Maine, to remove the Republican front-runner from its ballots, with a state judge again citing his role in the 6 January 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol as her justification in accordance with the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution.