A federal judge effectively confirmed Thursday that former President Donald Trump’s trial on charges related to his bid to overturn the 2020 election result will not take place until after voters head to the polls on Nov. 5.
US District Judge Tanya Chutkan laid out a schedule for pretrial deliberations through Nov. 7, which will enable special counsel Jack Smith to unfurl some damaging evidence against Trump prior to election night.
Prosecutors are expected to complete evidentiary disclosures by Sept. 10 and then file a brief on questions about presidential immunity on Sept. 26.
Trump’s team had battled during a hearing Thursday to be the ones to deliver the opening salvo in the presidential immunity question — which the Supreme Court kicked to the lower courts to sort out further — but Chutkan determined it’ll be tasked with filling the response instead by Oct. 17.
Effectively restarting some of the pretrial wrangling to comply with the Supreme Court’s July 1 decision on presidential immunity, Chutkan also vacated a prior decision to reject Trump’s motion to dismiss.
She gave his team a deadline of Oct. 17 to file a renewed motion to dismiss based on presidential immunity as well as a deadline of Oct. 3 to file a supplement to the motion to dismiss based on statutory grounds.
Smith’s team filed a revamped superseding indictment against Trump last week that made adjustments for the Supreme Court’s ruling — which concluded that presidents enjoy absolute immunity for official acts in office, but remanded to the lower courts the question of whether the election subversion case can proceed.
In that overhauled indictment, Smith kept the same four charges against Trump, but stripped out references to conduct that could’ve been official and sprinkled in explanations of why other actions in question didn’t pertain to official business.
Trump formally pleaded not guilty to the superseding indictment, a court filing showed Tuesday.
Chutkan, who will now have to rule on whether or not the election subversion case against Trump can continue in the wake of the high court’s immunity decision, did not set up a trial start date in the case, calling it an “exercise in futility.”
During a somewhat testy hearing Thursday, Chutkan brushed aside concerns about the 2024 presidential election when trying to map out the schedule.
Trump’s legal team fussed that prosecutors would potentially be permitted to dump politically damaging information against the 45th president in close proximity to when voters head to the polls.
“The electoral process and the timing of the election … is not relevant here,” Chutkan argued during the hearing, per Politico. “This court is not concerned with the electoral schedule.”
Since Trump was first slapped with four charges in the 2020 election subversion that was unsealed in August 2023, his team embarked on an endeavor to delay the case as much as possible.
By the end of last year, his lawyers were able to effectively freeze the case by challenging it with a novel presidential immunity argument.
The potential for Trump to win the Nov. 5 presidential election, return to the White House and direct the Justice Department to stand down was largely unspoken about on Thursday.
“This case has been pending for over a year. We’re hardly sprinting to the finish line,” Chutkan reportedly quipped at one point when Trump lawyer John Lauro implied that prosecutors were trying to rush deliberations.
Lauro also referenced US District Court Judge Aileen Cannon’s decision in July to toss out the 40-count indictment against Trump for his alleged hoarding of classified documents after deeming Smith’s appointment unconstitutional.
Smith has already filed an appeal of that decision.
Chutkan gave Trump’s team the go-ahead to file a fresh motion challenging the legitimacy of Smith’s appointment.
Another sticking point that emerged in Thursday’s hearing was the extent to which prosecutors can detail Trump’s alleged pressure campaign against former Vice President Mike Pence to decertify the 2020 election results.
The Supreme Court ruled that in gray areas, presidents enjoy a presumption of innocence. Chutkan argued that the high court relegated that question on Pence to her to sort out.
Trump has a total of 14 criminal counts pending against him, including 10 in the Georgia election tampering case, which is effectively on hold pending an appeal against the prosecution.
Back in May, a jury found Trump guilty of 34 counts in the Manhattan hush-money case. Sentencing has yet to take place.
The 78-year-old has denied wrongdoing and pleaded not guilty to all charges he’s faced.
