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The judge overseeing Donald Trump’s federal election interference case will not let the 2024 presidential election get in the way of prosecuting the former president, after months of delays over his “immunity” appeal effectively froze the case in Washington DC.
Reconvening in a courtroom for the first time in nearly a year, District Judge Tanya Chutkan held a status conference with federal prosecutors and lawyers for Trump to determine next steps in the case, in which Trump is criminally accused of trying to subvert his election loss and then failing to stop a mob of his supporters who tried to do it by force.
“Life is almost meaningless without seeing you, your honor,” Trump’s attorney John Lauro joked at the start of Thursday’s hearing.
After the Supreme Court ruled that Trump is entitled to some immunity from prosecution for his “official” actions in office, special counsel Jack Smith filed a new indictment last week that sought to downplay any connection between Trump’s “official” duties and his alleged crusade to unlawfully reverse his election loss.
Judge Chutkan repeatedly lambasted Lauro after he argued that it was “unfair” that the case would be moving forward during a “sensitive time” — in other words, during the 2024 election.
“It strikes me that what you’re trying to do is affect the presentation of evidence in this case in a way so as not to impinge on the election of the president,” Judge Chutkan said.
Chutkan, who appeared to grow frustrated with Trump’s attorneys as time went on, said she is not concerned with the “electoral schedule.”
“That’s not something I’m going to consider,” she said.
Chutkan said it would be an “exercise in futility” to set a trial date at this point, noting that any upcoming decision on what evidence is covered by the “immunity” ruling would likely be held up in appeals anyway.
When Lauro suggested that Chutkan was making a “rush to judgment,” she reminded him just how long the case has been sitting.
“This case has been pending for over a year,” she said. “We’re hardly sprinting to the finish line.”
Trump is charged with four crimes, including conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights.
He waived his appearance in court on Thursday and entered a plea of not guilty to the refiled charges.
Lauro argued on Thursday that the special counsel ran afoul of the immunity ruling by including Trump’s interactions with his then-Vice President Mike Pence in the new indictment. He suggested if she finds that the evidence should be shielded under the immunity decision, then the indictment is pointless.
“I have to decide whether … those conversations are somehow outside the official duties,” Chutkan said. “I’m risking reversal, no matter what I do.”
Thomas Windom, a prosecutor with the special counsel’s team, told Chutkan that the former president’s attorneys intend to file additional motions to throw out the case — including a challenge to Smith’s appointment.
A federal judge overseeing the classified documents case against Trump in Florida agreed to dismiss that case on such grounds. Judge Chutkan, however, said she did not find that argument convincing.
“Can a private citizen like Jack Smith indict a former president?” Lauro said, noting Justice Clarence Thomas’s interest in the issue.
Smith, who was sitting in the first row of the courtroom, did not appear to react.
Windom also argued that the case schedule should only be allowed to accommodate one other appeal before heading to trial and that all decisions on immunity should be “simultaneous.”
He noted that Trump’s lawyers Todd Blanche and Emily Bove recently submitted 52 pages of filings within nine days in Trump’s separate hush money case in New York, arguing that Trump’s lawyers can move quickly if they choose to.
“Congratulations, Mr. Blanche,” Chutkan joked.
A small group of protesters followed Trump’s lawyers as they left the courthouse.
“We all saw what happened. It was a failed coup,” democracy activist Bill Christeson, 70, told The Independent.
Jon Pinkus, a retired paralegal who attended the hearing, told The Independent that “we’ve got an excellent judge, and I think justice will be served eventually, but the American legal system is just not equipped to deal with well-organized, well-funded, active fascism.”
“You get as much justice as you can buy and pay for, so all these procedural rights and interlocutory rights that he’s exercised just aren’t accessible to regular folks like you and me,” he added.
Trump is “going to lose,” he said, “but ... the hypothetical is that he wins, he will certainly try [to] have these things mashed.”
Gustaf Kilander reports from the E Barrett Prettyman Federal Courthouse in Washington DC
