ANALYSIS: Trump Election Case Judge Sets Tone With Denial of More Prep Time for Defense

Former President Donald Trump speaks as the keynote speaker at the 56th Annual Silver Elephant Dinner hosted by the South Carolina Republican Party in Columbia, S.C., on Aug. 5, 2023. (Melissa Sue Gerrits/Getty Images)

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan appears to have hinted at her attitude toward the defense of former President Donald Trump in the case involving Mr. Trump’s efforts to reverse the outcome of the 2020 election.

On Aug. 5, the judge denied Mr. Trump’s team more time to respond to a gag order that the prosecutors have asked for. Some commentators have interpreted the order as Judge Chutkan’s signaling that she won’t put up with delay tactics on Mr. Trump’s part.

As Mr. Trump is the leading contender for the Republican presidential nomination, the timing of the case has important implications. Securing a conviction before the election may hurt his chances. Some have raised alarm over the order because it could mean that the judge is letting political considerations affect her judgment.

The rule in D.C. courts is that the defendant gets 14 days to respond to motions, according to defense attorney and former federal prosecutor William Shipley. The judge can shorten the deadline, but Mr. Shipley questioned why this judge insisted on giving Mr. Trump only three days.

“This is already creating a record of bias,” he wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “There is no reason for the judge to set aside the local rule on the timeline to respond to motions.”

Mr. Shipley has been representing dozens of people charged in relation to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol breach—an incident tied to the case against Mr. Trump.

The case was brought on Aug. 1 by special counsel Jack Smith, laying out four charges: conspiracy to “impair, obstruct, and defeat” the collection and counting of electoral votes; conspiracy against Americans’ right to vote; obstruction of the electoral vote counting by Congress; and conspiracy to obstruct the electoral vote counting (pdf).

The allegations rest on the assumption that Mr. Trump didn’t genuinely believe that victory in the election was unlawfully taken from him and that his attempts to reverse the results were thus fraudulent and corrupt.

Mr. Shipley predicted that the case will involve extensive discovery. Mr. Trump is likely to make the argument that he had reason to believe that the election result was illegitimate and will tap the federal government’s data repositories for anything that could help him make the case.

“We are talking about millions of pages,” Mr. Shipley wrote on X.

Mr. Trump’s legal team could easily claim that years are needed to review the evidence, and the judge would have a hard time pushing back, according to Mr. Shipley.

“It’s not a subject where she has a lot of room to deny them what they say they need without looking unreasonable,” Mr. Shipley wrote.

“That creates a record that will follow her and be a basis for an ‘abuse of discretion’ claim that could get her removed from the case.”

From this perspective, the judge seems to lack solid grounds for rushing the defense over a response to a motion.

“The point being that the case is going to drag on for years simply because of the volume of discovery. ... So it is pointless at the beginning of this case to save 3 days on a briefing schedule,” Mr. Shipley wrote.

He also argued that Mr. Trump’s team should fight Mr. Smith’s gag order request.

The prosecutors asked for a protective order on Aug. 4 that would prevent Mr. Trump from disclosing information he’s going to learn as the prosecutors provide him with evidence they hold against him as well as exculpatory information in the government’s possession.

“Such a restriction is particularly important in this case because the defendant has previously issued public statements on social media regarding witnesses, judges, attorneys, and others associated with legal matters pending against him,” the prosecutors wrote in their motion, citing a post Mr. Trump made on Truth Social that reads, “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!”

But the purpose of protective orders is to prevent prejudice in the jury pool, and the prosecutors stand on shaky ground in that regard because the government “has prosecuted Trump in the media for years,” Mr. Shipley wrote.

“To bar him from commenting on the evidence against him is a violation of his First Amendment rights,” he said.

Mr. Trump’s lawyer John Lauro opposed the gag order in a CNN interview on Aug. 6.

“The press and the American people in a campaign season have a right to know what the evidence is in this case provided that this evidence is not protected otherwise,” Mr. Lauro said. “So we’re going to oppose it.”

Mr. Trump pleaded not guilty to the charges and has maintained that the investigation is meant to interfere with his 2024 presidential bid.

Update: The article has been updated with additional information.