District Judge Tanya Chutkan gave a scheduling order Thursday in the federal election interference case against former President Donald Trump. A trial is now not expected to begin before the November presidential election.
A hearing on Thursday set out the schedule for the case moving forward, in light of the Supreme Court's July decision on presidential immunity.
The judge's scheduling order will determine how the case will move forward. It gives official notice that a trial has not yet been scheduled, and that certain filing deadlines will fall after November 5th.
Taken together, these details mean the trial against Trump will not begin before the election.
Defense attorneys have argued and will now be able to formally motion that Special Counsel Jack Smith doesn't have the authority to indict Trump because he was not properly appointed.
Judge Chutkan will hear that and other motions in the course of the case's new schedule.
In the Thursday hearing, Judge Chutkan explained that she was not considering the timing of the election in scheduling the case's proceedings.
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This new court hearing came two months after the Supreme Court's decision, with all six conservative justices ruling there is presidential immunity for official acts. The Supreme Court said presidents cannot be charged with crimes when actions involve official acts while in office.
Chutkan had made clear that issues of presidential immunity needs to be "dealt with as early as possible."
Legal experts said the Supreme Court's decision significantly weakened special counsel Jack Smith's case.
"The Supreme Court has left a lot of space now for the lower courts to try to interpret which of these actions count within the official scope of the president's actions and which are outside," said George Washington University law professor Paul Schiff Berman.
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Last week, Smith unveiled a new superseding indictment against the former president with the same criminal charges, including conspiracy and obstruction.
Prosecutors say Trump knowingly spread lies that there was fraud in the 2020 election. And on January 6, 2021, when rioters broke into the U.S. Capitol, he "exploited the disruption" for personal gain.
Trump has pleaded not guilty and calls this case "election interference," writing on Truth Social, "All of these scams will fail, just as deranged Jack's hoax in Florida has been fully dismissed, and we will win the most important election in the history of our country on November 5th."
"I think whatever Judge Chutkan does, it will almost certainly get appealed to the D.C. Circuit, and perhaps ultimately the Supreme Court will weigh in again," said Schiff Berman.
During Thursday's hearing, lawyers for the former president argued that conversations between Trump and Vice President Mike Pence should equate a dismissal. Chutkan rejected that argument.
