After months of delay, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., is expected to hold a hearing Thursday that could determine the trajectory of former President Donald Trump’s election interference case.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan is expected to consider competing proposals for how the case should proceed following the Supreme Court’s recent decision granting broad immunity for official acts by presidents.
Thursday’s hearing will mark the first time that lawyers for Trump and special counsel Jack Smith have graced the floor of Chutkan since last fall. Trump’s lawyers successfully delayed the case — originally scheduled to go to trial in March — by appealing their claim to presidential immunity to the Supreme Court, whose decision dramatically changed the legal landscape for the former president.
In a superseding indictment returned last week, Smith attempted to revise his case against the former president by removing all allegations related to Trump’s official duties — which would be exempt from prosecution after the Supreme Court ruling — while retaining the same four criminal charges Trump faced in his original indictment.
“The defendant had no official responsibilities related to the certification process, but he had a personal interest as a candidate in being named the winner of the election,” the new indictment states.
Trump, who is not expected to appear in person at Thursday’s hearing, has asked his lawyers to enter a not guilty plea on his behalf.
In addition to making minor changes to clarify Trump’s actions in a private capacity, prosecutors removed the once-central allegation that Trump tried to use the Justice Department to prop up his false claims of election fraud. The indictment also removed details about Trump’s conduct when rioters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 — including his refusal to recall the rioters — and some examples of advisers directly correcting Trump about his false claims of election fraud.
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at Desert Diamond Arena on August 23, 2024, in Glendale, Arizona.
Rebecca Noble/Getty Images
In a joint brief filed last week, prosecutors told Judge Chutkan that the revisions to the indictment ensured that the Supreme Court’s protections for official acts would not apply to the new case, which distinguishes Trump’s “private election activity” from “official action.”
Defense attorneys disagreed, arguing in the same filing that prosecutors improperly included allegations subject to presidential immunity and abused a federal obstruction law.
“We believe, and hope to demonstrate, that this case must end as a question of law,” the defense attorneys wrote.
Although the Supreme Court’s decision broadly expanded the scope of presidential immunity—providing absolute immunity for core presidential powers and a presumption of immunity for all other official acts—the Court declined to apply its decision fully to the facts alleged in Trump’s indictment, instead tasking Chutkan with conducting a “fact-specific analysis” to determine whether the former president’s conduct was official or unofficial.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys disagree on how best for Chutkan to proceed after the Supreme Court ruling, with Smith urging Chutkan to address the immunity issue “first and foremost” through a series of paper briefings, according to Friday’s joint filing.
Defense attorneys, by contrast, have urged Chutkan to first consider whether the case should be dismissed on the grounds that Smith was unlawfully appointed — the same argument used by a federal judge in Florida to dismiss the former president’s classified documents case — before addressing the issue of presidential immunity in a timetable that could drag the proceedings into the new year.
Thursday’s hearing is expected to offer the first indication of how Chutkan plans to handle the long-delayed case before the November election and implement the Supreme Court’s landmark decision.
Speaking to reporters Wednesday on the subject of election interference, Attorney General Merrick Garland defended Smith’s decision to file a superseding indictment two months before the November election, saying he was “pretty confident” that Smith had complied with Justice Department policies related to the election.
“I stand by the special counsel’s actions,” Garland said. “The new indictment is an attempt to respond to direct instructions from the Supreme Court on how to proceed with a new indictment in an ongoing case.”
Meanwhile, Trump continues to defend his efforts to overturn the election results.
“Whoever heard that you were indicted for interfering in a presidential election when you had every right to do so?” Trump asked in an interview on Fox News that aired Sunday.
ABC News
