Former President Donald Trump on Sept. 5 entered a not guilty plea to charges contained in a revised indictment brought by federal prosecutors that alleges that he tried to overturn the 2020 election.
The judge said she wouldn’t set a trial date yet.
Trump did not make an appearance at the court proceeding. Through his team of lawyers, he pleaded not guilty in a Washington federal courthouse as U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan held a status hearing in the case, more than a week after a grand jury returned a reworked indictment against the former president.
The special counsel, Jack Smith, previously argued that all the allegations in the indictment are not covered by the U.S. Supreme Court’s immunity ruling and that the case can proceed to trial.
The indictment brought by Smith was revised after the Supreme Court issued a ruling in July finding that presidents should be considered immune from prosecution for their official acts. Smith’s indictment states that Trump acted in his private capacity when he carried out the alleged illegal activity.
Chutkan said that she believes that immunity claims “will stop these proceedings,” noting that it would be “an exercise in futility” to schedule a trial date in the case, according to reporters in the courtroom.
But she told Trump’s lawyers that she won’t allow the 2024 election to have an impact on the case’s schedule.
“It strikes me that what you’re trying to do is affect the presentation of evidence in this case so as not to impinge on an election,” Chutkan said, noting that she is not “talking about presidents of the United States” but instead a “four-count indictment.”
“I understand there is an election pending,” she said, according to reporters in the courthouse. “This court is not concerned with the electoral schedule. ... That’s nothing I’m going to consider.”
Prosecutors and defense lawyers are at odds over the next steps in the case after the Supreme Court narrowed the scope of the prosecution. Trump attorney John Lauro told Chutkan that the high court’s opinion mandates the outright dismissal of the case, a position the judge made clear she did not accept.
“We may be dealing with an illegitimate indictment from the get-go,” Lauro said. “We want an orderly process that does justice to the Supreme Court opinion.”
Pushing back on the defense’s claims that the special counsel wants to move too quickly, a member of Smith’s prosecution team, Thomas Windom, noted that Trump’s lawyers filed a lengthy brief seeking to overturn his New York case conviction and dismiss the case less than two weeks after the Supreme Court’s ruling in July.
“The defense can move comprehensively, quickly, and well. So can we,” Windom said.
The case is one of two federal prosecutions against Trump. The other, charging him with illegally retaining classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, was dismissed in July by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon.
That judge said Smith’s appointment as special counsel was unlawful. Smith’s team has appealed that ruling. Trump’s lawyers say they intend to ask Chutkan to dismiss the election case on the same grounds.
