Judge gives Trump and prosecutors more time to assess presidential immunity
The federal judge presiding over former President Donald Trump’s election interference case on Friday delayed until the end of the month a deadline for the defense and prosecution to send proposals for how to assess the impact of the Supreme Court’s recent ruling granting former presidents broad immunity against criminal charges.
In a brief order, Judge Tanya S. Chutkan told Trump’s lawyer and prosecutors in the office of the special counsel, Jack Smith, that they now have until Aug. 30 — not her initial deadline of Friday — to detail how they would like to proceed with a complicated fact-finding mission the Supreme Court demanded as part of its immunity decision last month.
Chutkan also rescheduled for Sept. 5 a hearing in U.S. District Court in Washington to discuss how that ruling will affect Trump’s election case. The hearing had originally been set for Aug. 16.
The delays came at the request of Smith’s deputies who told Chutkan on Thursday night that they needed more time “to assess the new precedent” laid out in the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling.
The ruling, issued July 1, gave Trump — and other former presidents — complete immunity from prosecution on any charges arising from their core duties, such as those involving the veto or the power to grant pardons. It also gave Trump the presumption of immunity for all other acts undertaken in his official capacity as president. But the ruling allowed prosecutors to bring an indictment related to those acts if they could convince a judge that the charges would not impinge on “the authority and functions of the executive branch.”
A key element of the court’s decision requires Chutkan to sort through the 45-page indictment accusing Trump of plotting to overturn the results of the 2020 election, and decide which of its many allegations can be part of any eventual trial and which arise from official acts and will have to be tossed out.
The upcoming filings and hearing are meant to help her hash out the details of that fact-finding process. It remains unclear whether she will rely solely on written briefs from the two sides or whether she will schedule a more substantial hearing down the road to consider evidence — perhaps from witnesses — about the divide between official and unofficial acts in what could resemble a minitrial.
The election-interference case, one of the most substantial of the four criminal cases brought against Trump since the spring of 2023, had been frozen in place for nearly eight months as a federal appeals court and then the Supreme Court considered his immunity claims. The case returned to Chutkan last week, and she wasted no time in seeking to create a process to consider next steps.
But granting Smith’s request for an additional three weeks will slow down that process.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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