Judge Tanya Chutkan concluded the status conference with limited agreement among the parties about how to proceed.
The judge seemed inclined to favor a quicker, more condensed schedule than what the defense proposed.
Chutkan said the issue of immunity will likely delay the proceedings again, and therefore “it’s an exercise in futility” to set a trial date.
Judge Tanya Chutkan, Trump attorney John Lauro, and prosecutor Thomas Windom all agreed they could work concurrently on issues related to dismissing the case on statutory grounds, along with issues related to immunity.
Chutkan had dismissed, without prejudice, a prior motion to dismiss on statutory grounds but noted that Trump’s attorneys could file a new motion based on the superseding indictment.
The judge indicated that Lauro could file a supplemental briefing addressing the Justice Department’s (DOJ) obstruction charge.
Trump attorney John Lauro and Judge Tanya Chutkan clashed over Lauro’s intent to file a motion to dismiss over the legitimacy of special counsel Jack Smith’s appointment.
Lauro insisted that he should be able to file the motion and cited Justice Clarence Thomas’s concurrence in the Supreme Court’s immunity decision. In that concurrence, Thomas questioned the legitimacy of Smith’s appointment.
The Trump attorney also pointed to Judge Aileen Cannon’s decision to dismiss the Mar-a-Lago documents case in Florida, based on Smith's appointment.
“There’s no additional discovery that we anticipate,” Prosecutor Thomas Windom said, pushing back on Trump attorney John Lauro’s argument that more discovery was necessary.
He also took issue with Lauro’s framing of the interactions with Vice President Mike Pence, saying the Supreme Court’s decision was all about “fact-bound determinations.”
The defense, Windom suggested, was cherrypicking language from the Supreme Court’s opinion.
Trump attorney John Lauro criticized the Justice Department’s (DOJ) proposal of a single appeal as unfair to Trump. He also urged Judge Tanya Chutkan to consider that the indictment itself may be illegitimate.
Lauro argued that the Supreme Court’s ruling meant that the conduct alleged in the indictment was immune from prosecution.
“We’re being put in an incredibly unfair position,” Lauro said at one point.
Judge Tanya Chutkan told Trump attorney John Lauro that the court has said the timing of the election is not relevant and she won’t consider this factor in scheduling pre-trial proceedings.
“This case has been pending for over a year,” Chutkan said.
The judge said that the court was “hardly sprinting” towards the finish line.
Prosecutor Thomas Windom told Judge Tanya Chutkan that the Justice Department (DOJ) would like a single appeal to deal with all immunity issues raised by the Supreme Court “at the same time, simultaneously.”
Windom noted that the case was unusual given the Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. United States. He sought to limit the number of interlocutory appeals prior to the start of the trial to just one, rather than multiple that could further delay a trial date.
His opening brief, he suggested, will include multiple exhibits and outline why he believed the conduct cited was private in nature. Private acts, in contrast with official acts, are not covered by presidential immunity.
Federal Judge Tanya Chutkan has taken the bench with an opening statement welcoming the parties back to the court. Thomas Windom and Molly Gaston are present for the special counsel’s office. Various attorneys, including John Lauro and Todd Blanche, are present for Trump.
Chutkan started by reviewing the case history and outlining the Supreme Court’s ruling on immunity. She said she didn’t intend to finalize the schedule at the hearing.
Chutkan proceeded with confirming the arraignment of Trump based on the superseding indictment. Trump is not present as he filed a waiver of appearance, which Chutkan accepted.
WASHINGTON—Federal Judge Tanya Chutkan is holding a status conference after months of delay in former President Donald Trump’s federal election interference case. The Sept. 5 conference is expected to focus on how the court should proceed with a pre-trial process that started around the same time last year.
Since then, the Supreme Court has issued a landmark decision on presidential immunity in Trump v. United States. In doing so, it sent the case back to Chutkan to make determinations about which conduct outlined by special counsel Jack Smith in the indictment is subject to presidential immunity.
Smith filed a revised indictment at the end of August in an attempt to adjust for the Supreme Court’s immunity decision. The new filing drops some of the initial allegations but retains the four counts in the original indictment.
Former President Donald Trump’s election interference case is expected to resume with a status conference on Sept. 5 after months of delay related to his appeal based on presidential immunity.
Despite the Supreme Court issuing a landmark precedent in Trump v. United States in July, it’s likely the case will proceed with further debate about the scope of Trump’s immunity for acts taken roughly four years ago. A majority of the Supreme Court held that presidents enjoy certain levels of immunity for official acts.
The status conference will help determine how the parties will continue pretrial proceedings, which started around the same time last year, and wrestle with how to proceed with special counsel Jack Smith’s superseding indictment, which he filed in August.