Trump Seeks Extended Trial Timeline in High-Stakes Jan. 6 Case

Former President Donald Trump speaks at II Toro E La Capra in Las Vegas on Aug. 23, 2024. Ian Maule/Getty Images

Former President Donald Trump and special counsel Jack Smith are at odds over how to proceed in the high-profile election interference case against the former president, with both sides presenting contrasting strategies in a joint court filing that could see the legal battle stretch well into 2025.

In a joint status report filed at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia late on Aug. 30, both parties responded to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan’s request for guidance on how to move forward following a recent Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity that has had a significant effect on the case. The ruling, issued in July, granted Trump immunity for official acts but left open the possibility of prosecution for actions outside his official duties as president.

In the filing, Trump’s legal team laid out a detailed and extended timeline for the case, indicating their intention to file numerous additional motions and challenges. The defense team’s proposed schedule would push critical proceedings into January 2025, well after the 2024 presidential election.

Smith, who has been leading the investigation into Trump’s actions to challenge the 2020 election results, did not propose a specific trial timeline in the filing. Rather, he emphasized that the decision on how to manage the case lies entirely with Chutkan.

At the same time, he expressed the prosecution’s readiness to file its opening immunity brief “promptly at any time the Court deems appropriate,” while suggesting that Chutkan handle the various motions filed by Trump’s team concurrently to keep the case moving forward expeditiously.

In a further bid to accelerate proceedings, Smith also pushed back on Trump’s proposal for a separate deadline and motions practice regarding discovery.

Earlier this week, Smith’s team filed a superseding indictment against Trump, which maintains the original charges but reworks the case in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling. The revised indictment narrows its focus to Trump’s actions as a private citizen and candidate, rather than as president, claiming that many of his alleged actions had no connection to his official responsibilities and therefore fall outside the scope of the immunity ruling.

Under Trump’s plan, as laid out in the joint filing, the first significant legal challenge would take place in late October, when his team intends to argue in a motion that Smith’s appointment was unconstitutional and that the funding used to pay the special counsel’s team is illegal.

“As a threshold matter, President Trump will move to dismiss the Special Counsel’s improper appointment and use of non-appropriated funds—issues that a Supreme Court justice describes as ’serious questions’ that ’must be answered before this prosecution may proceed,'” the filing reads.

While it’s unclear what Trump’s lawyers will argue specifically in seeking to have Smith’s appointment declared invalid, they’re likely to echo some of those put forward by former Attorney General Edwin Meese and two constitutional scholars, who previously claimed that Attorney General Merrick Garland exceeded his statutory and constitutional authority in appointing Smith.

Meese and the scholars contend that the statutes cited by Garland do not authorize the appointment of a private citizen to wield extraordinary criminal law enforcement powers under the title of special counsel, and they further argue that Smith’s lack of Senate confirmation and alleged improper appointment to the role of a federal officer mean that all actions taken by him against Trump should be declared null and void.

This challenge to the legitimacy of Smith’s appointment mirrors one that Trump’s team successfully mounted in Florida, where they secured a favorable ruling that is now under appeal.

Trump’s lawyers also suggested in the joint status report that the court should not begin addressing presidential immunity issues until December. That timing appears to be critical, as it would delay any substantial progress in the case until after the election.

The defense also argued in the filing that key elements of Smith’s revised indictment, particularly those relating to Trump’s conversations with then-Vice President Mike Pence, should be grounds for dismissal of the entire case, based on the Supreme Court’s ruling. The high court determined that such conversations were presumptively immune, but Smith’s revised indictment challenges this by focusing on Pence’s role in leading the Senate, suggesting that their discussions fell outside the scope of protected White House communications.

Smith’s superseding indictment, which was reworked in light of the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling, claims that Trump’s statements on social media calling on Pence to refuse to count the electoral votes that established President Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election were unrelated to Pence’s official duties and instead amounted to Trump’s “personal” attempt to “unlawfully retain power.”

Trump’s lawyers argue that Smith’s “improper” use of allegations relating to the former vice president in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling that extends presumptive immunity to communications between Trump and Pence are foundational to the superseding indictment and that Chutkan should toss it entirely.

After the Supreme Court ruled on July 1 that Trump is entitled to some immunity, the justices sent the case back to the district court, leaving it up to Chutkan to decide how to apply the ruling to the case.