Special counsel Jack Smith has made a new filing in his case so-called “election interference” case against former President Donald Trump with the D.C. Circuit Court. In the filing before U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, Smith requested a delay in the case late Thursday, Smith’s team noted that it still had to digest a previous U.S. Supreme Court ruling that appeared to favor Trump.
Originally, Chutkan had set a hearing for August 16, but Smith has asked for additional time. He proposed submitting a schedule for pretrial proceedings by the end of the month, which would push back any significant actions until September.
“Although those consultations are well underway, the Government has not finalized its position on the most appropriate schedule for the parties to brief issues related to the decision,” prosecutors wrote in the filing. “The Government therefore respectfully requests additional time to provide the Court with an informed proposal regarding the schedule for pretrial proceedings moving forward.” The filing goes on to note that Trump’s defense team did not oppose extending the date.
The request marks a shift from Special Counsel Jack Smith’s earlier strategy of accelerating the case. Since the start, Smith’s team has prioritized speeding up the proceedings. In December, Smith sought an expedited review of the presidential immunity issue by the Supreme Court, but the justices chose not to address it before the appeals court had its chance.
On December 1, Chutkan denied Trump’s motion to dismiss the case based on presidential immunity. His subsequent appeal led to a significant multi-month delay in the case and the cancellation of the originally scheduled March trial date. The Supreme Court found 6-3 last month that presidents are immune from prosecution for official acts taken in office.
“Under our constitutional structure of separated powers, the nature of Presidential power entitles a former President to absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority,” the court held. “And he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts. There is no immunity for unofficial acts.” The justices left it to lower courts to decide what actions Trump took constituted official and non-official actions.
While Chutkan also denied a Trump team request last week to dismiss the case on the grounds of selective prosecution, a former U.S. attorney said that the high court’s ruling is not good at all for Smith, who initially brought the felony charges against Trump for allegedly ‘interfering’ in the 2020 election and obstructing an official proceeding. Following the Supreme Court’s July 1 ruling that presidents have immunity for their official acts, Judge Chutkan will need to assess which actions taken by Trump after the 2020 election fall outside this immunity and are thus subject to prosecution.
Joyce Vance, the former U.S. attorney, suggested that prosecutors in the election case have not “made much progress” and are “back at square one” following the Supreme Court decision. The reason why is that Smith will now be forced to “reconsider the charges and allegations in his indictment and the evidence he can use to support them,” she wrote for the left-leaning Brennan Center nonprofit. Smith’s team may have to “alter or delete some of the four crimes” that they charged Trump with, along with accompanying evidence and allegations to support their charges, she added.
Last month, Trump attorney Todd Blanche suggested to radio host Hugh Hewitt that the judge should delay the case until after the November election. The interview took place just days after the former president narrowly escaped an assassination attempt at a rally in Pennsylvania.
“[There are] a lot of others out there that want, still want, nothing more than to see President Trump go down before the election. And that’s not who we are as a country. That’s not the way the justice system is supposed to work. That’s not the way it’s ever worked before. And we can still right this ship,” Blanche said. He added that those who want to defeat Trump should “take your message to the voters and tell them to vote. You should not use the court system.”
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