Decision further delays Trump’s electoral case, but opens doors for the release of evidence

Monday’s Supreme Court ruling on executive immunity makes it all but certain that former President donald trump he will not be tried on charges of trying to overturn the last election before voters decide whether to send him back to the White House in the next one.

But the ruling also opened the door for prosecutors to detail much of their evidence against Trump before a federal judge — and the public — in a broad fact-finding hearing, perhaps before Election Day.

It is not yet clear when the hearing, which was ordered as part of the court’s decision, might take place or how long it will last.

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But it will address the big question the justices sent back to the lower court, which is how much of Trump’s indictment can survive the ruling that former presidents enjoy immunity for official actions they take in office. And it will be held in U.S. District Court in Washington before Judge Tanya Chutkan, who handled the case before it was frozen more than six months ago while a series of courts considered his immunity claims.

Almost from the moment Chutkan was assigned to the case, she moved quickly with the case, showing little patience with Trump’s efforts to delay it — or his complaints that it was hindering his campaign.

At one point, she told the former president that his “day job” as a candidate would not affect his handling of the case, later declaring, “This trial will not yield to the election cycle.”

Trump’s lawyers will undoubtedly seek to narrow the scope of the process and delay it for as long as possible. And if he wins the presidency again, he could avoid prosecution entirely by ordering his Justice Department to drop the entire case.

But if Chutkan maintains his practice of dealing quickly with procedural issues and manages to schedule the hearing for September or October, it could lead to something extraordinary: a mini-trial of sorts taking place in the nation’s capital, in what could be the straight end of the process. the presidential campaign.

Whenever the hearing is finally held, and however it is structured, it will focus on the central question of the Supreme Court’s ruling: whether the numerous allegations in Trump’s 45-page indictment were based on official acts he took in his role as president or in unofficial acts in his private capacity as a candidate for the office.

Prosecutors face no restrictions in bringing charges arising from unofficial acts. But the justices ruled that they must use evidence and arguments to overcome the presumption that Trump is immune from prosecution for official acts.

When Special Counsel Jack Smith brought election charges against Trump last summer, the prosecution accused the former president of using five primary methods to subvert the results of the 2020 election race.

In its decision, the Supreme Court ruled that there was no doubt that Trump enjoyed immunity from being prosecuted for one of those methods: his efforts to force the Justice Department to validate his false claims that the election was marred by fraud. widespread. This happened because the judges ruled that Trump’s interactions with senior department officials were clearly part of his official duties as president.

But the judges left Chutkan, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, with the substantial task of carrying out official and unofficial testing for the other four methods described in the indictment.

This includes Trump’s attempts to use lies about voter fraud to persuade state officials to change the results of the race, as well as his plan to create fake voter rolls declaring that he won several swing states and actually lost.

They also include Trump’s campaign to pressure his vice president, Mike Pence, to throw the election in his favor during a certification process at the Capitol on January 6, 2021 – and, since that effort failed, his attempts to exploit the violence and chaos that erupted at the Capitol to further delay election certification.

A hearing covering all of this could easily take several days – or even weeks – to complete. And it could result in testimony not just from Pence and his advisers, but also from a cast of characters, including lawyers and campaign advisers who were part of the fake election scheme, and state officials who were subject to pressure from Trump.

If Chutkan allows the broader version of the hearing to take place, it could look a lot like a full Trump trial, with only a jury left to render a verdict.

Trump’s lawyers have had enormous success in delaying proceedings in three of the four criminal cases he faces. And they will no doubt do their best to postpone the fact-finding hearing before Chutkan.

So far, only his case in New York City has gone to trial, resulting in his conviction in May on 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up a sex scandal that threatened to derail his 2016 run for office.

Chutkan strongly rejected Trump’s initial immunity claims last winter, saying they had no basis in law or American history. But although she accused him of trying to “usurp the reins of government,” she had no choice but to suspend the case when he began the long process of appealing her decision.

Once these challenges began, starting before a federal appeals court in Washington, Chutkan suggested to the defense and prosecution that when he regained control of the case, he intended to give Trump an extra day of preparation for each day he had lost to the suspension of the process before the start of the trial.

If she sticks to that decision, she will end up owing Trump an additional 82 days of preparation time before any trial can begin — equivalent to the period between December 13, when the case was first frozen, and the originally scheduled trial date. March 4th.

But there is no trial date at this time, and Chutkan would likely only start counting those two and a half months after conducting his fact-finding hearing.

Before the hearing takes place, both sides will have to present motions to the judge outlining their competing views about which of the allegations are based on official acts and which are based on unofficial acts.

And even before these substantive motions are filed, there could easily be lengthy preliminary arguments over defining the terms of the hearing and debate over whether prosecutors will have to provide the defense with any additional discovery information before the hearing takes place.

In the end, although the judges tasked Chutkan with conducting a hearing, any decisions she makes will be subject to appeal — meaning that if Trump is not elected again and the case continues, the final say on how much of the indictment survives will come from the Federal Court of Justice.

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