WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump’s legal team offered a court timetable Friday his federal election interference case that would delay the legal battle over whether his charges are covered by immunity until after the election, pushing the start of a potential trial until well after the next inauguration.
Special counsel Jack Smith said he favors a completely different approach to the court’s appointment, saying the court should immediately begin considering arguments about whether Trump’s actions are covered by presidential immunity.
“The government stands ready to promptly grant its opening immunity at any time the Court deems appropriate,” wrote Molly Gaston, senior assistant special counsel to the government.
But Trump’s legal team wants to consider other points before turning to the question of whether the Supreme Court’s decision earlier this year disputes some of the charges against him.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan originally set a hearing for Thursday to discuss the future schedule of the case, which was originally scheduled to go to trial in March 2024.
Although Trump’s lawyers have never publicly referred to the pending election, the timetable outlined in the new filing will not allow for new substantive arguments from the special counsel until after the vote is over. Trump has been accused of trying to deceive the American public and disenfranchise voters in several states in connection with his multi-pronged effort to overturn the 2020 election by claiming it was rigged. The US Congress building on January 6. Trump has pleaded not guilty and denied all wrongdoing. He continued to falsely insist that the election had been rigged and began to suggest that the upcoming election could also be rigged to disqualify him from the presidency.
If Trump wins the election in November, after his appointees take over the Justice Department in January, he will likely be able to wrap up the case against him before a trial begins.
Trump’s attorneys said they had “considered several issues” with the superseding indictment returned by a federal grand jury earlier this week, arguing that their issues “should be resolved in his favor as a matter of law, obviating the need for further proceedings.” One of their challenges will be to challenge the legality of Smith’s appointment, repeating an argument that helped them successfully dismiss separate charges in Florida federal court — but which his lawyers chose not to mention earlier in the election interference case.
Attorney General Merrick Garland This was reported by NBC News last month states that he does not agree with decision In July, Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon in Florida ruled that Smith’s appointment was illegal.
Garland, owned by former President Barack Obama, asked, “Do I look like someone who made a fundamental mistake about the law?” has been put forward to the Supreme Court toward the end of Obama’s second term. “I don’t think so.”
Trump’s team also said the Supreme Court’s decision meant the new indictment would be dismissed entirely because some of the actions described in it, including “tweets and public statements related to the 2020 presidential election, state officials related to federal elections, and alternative voter lists allegations” should be protected from prosecution. Trump’s lawyers said they could also file a motion to dismiss the indictment because former Vice President Mike Pence was mentioned before the grand jury.
Trump’s team proposed a tentative schedule in which the first hearing on their petitions would be held on Jan. 27, a week after the next president is sworn in. Trump’s lawyers suggested that the spring and fall of 2025 would be time for “additional proceedings, if necessary.”
The positions of both the government and Trump’s defense team a joint action He applied late Thursday.
It was Trump was originally accused were scheduled to go to trial on the charges in August 2023 and initially in March 2024, meaning that the case would have been sentenced before Election Day and, if convicted, Trump would have already been convicted or sentenced. books. But the strategy adopted by his legal team paid off with their appeal significantly delays the work.
of the Supreme Court immunity decisionIt undermined the special prosecutor who gave the former president broad protection to prevent him from being prosecuted for official acts he did as president. A new indictment in order to simplify the issues raised in the decision of the Supreme Court — was returned earlier this week by an entirely different federal grand jury — Does not include any allegations of Trump’s attempts to install and weaponize the Justice Department Geoffrey Clarke — an environmental lawyer with no criminal prosecution experience who believes the election may have been rigged through a smart thermostat — as acting United States attorney general hours before the January 6 attack.
On January 6, many of the defendants admitted they were duped by Trump’s 2020 election lies and expressed remorse to the judges. convincing enough Trump’s team tried to get them down in the first stage the gloss of intellectual saliva to his election conspiracy theories. In court, they argued that these election conspiracy theories, propagated by the same man who rose to political fame by claiming that America’s first black president had a fake birth certificate and was actually born in Kenya, were credible and well maintained. faith.”
Jack Smith’s team has publicly stated that they believe that Trump does not believe the lies he has been spreading about the election and that he knows they are, in fact, lies.
“These allegations were unsupported, objectively unsubstantiated, and constantly changing, and Defendant and his associates repeated them even after they had been publicly refuted,” the new indictment states.