The federal judge overseeing the criminal case against Donald Trump over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results indicated on Thursday that the scheduled trial date would not hold as a result of the case being frozen while the former US president appeals to have the charges dismissed.
The US district judge Tanya Chutkan last summer scheduled the trial in Washington DC to start on 4 March – allowing Trump and his team seven months to prepare his defense – and has taken pains to ensure that date would not be delayed.
But when Trump appealed her decision in December to reject his motion to toss the charges on grounds he could not be prosecuted for actions he took as president related to his duties, the case became automatically frozen while the US court of appeals for the DC circuit considered the matter.
In her six-page order prohibiting the special counsel Jack Smith from filing motions pending the appeal, Chutkan affirmed that Trump would get the full seven-month period and that any time that elapsed between December and the end of the appeals process would not count against him.
“Contrary to Defendant’s assertion, the court has not and will not set deadlines in this case based on the assumption that he has undertaken preparation when not required to do so,” the judge wrote.
The line marked the first time that Chutkan has acknowledged that the March trial date may no longer be viable. While the DC circuit is expected to issue a decision on the immunity appeal expeditiously after oral arguments last week, it could be weeks until a decision is handed down.
Trump can also continue his appeal efforts – and continue to have the case stayed – by asking the full appeals court to rehear the case “en banc” should the three-judge panel at oral arguments uphold Chutkan’s ruling. En banc means a hearing before an entire bench of judges. Trump could also ultimately appeal to the US supreme court.
The situation reflects the success Trump has had to date with executing his strategy of seeking to delay the case, ideally beyond the 2024 election in the hope that he wins re-election to potentially pardon himself or direct his attorney general to drop the charges.
Chutkan’s order was a win for Trump insofar as she affirmed that prosecutors should not be filing motions related to the substance of the case in order to comply with the stay order that has frozen the case, even if she declined to hold them in contempt as Trump had wanted.
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Trump had complained that the filings from prosecutors, submitted to the trial court while they litigated the immunity issue, diverted their attention and created an unfair burden because his lawyers needed to review them to make sure it included things “involved in the appeal”.
“While that is not a major burden, it is a cognizable one,” Chutkan wrote of Trump’s complaint. She added that Trump could make further objections to prosecutors’ findings, and he could do so when the appeals process is resolved and “the court sets a new schedule”.
