D.C. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan granted a three-week delay on a status hearing for Donald Trump’s Jan. 6 election interference case, giving a green light on special counsel Jack Smith’s ask for more time to navigate proceedings, after the Supreme Court granted sweeping immunity to presidents.
Smith, who told prosecutors that he needed more time to understand the “new precedent set forth last month,” will have to be ready to lay out a schedule for an Aug. 30 hearing.
“Although those consultations are well underway, the government has not finalized its position on the most appropriate schedule for the parties to brief issues related to the decision,” Smith’s office said yesterday, of the motion to delay.
The ask, which went unopposed by Trump’s team, came a month after the Supreme Court ruled to give presidents immunity for official acts, a distinction they kicked back down to lower courts, further delaying the proceedings against Trump for his scheme to subvert the will of voters.
The indictment, into then-President Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 attacks and several state plots to send slates of fake electors to Congress, has run into multiple roadblocks since the special counsel brought it before the court, while another case prosecuted by Smith over Trump’s illegal holding of classified documents after his presidency was tossed by Florida federal judge Aileen Cannon
Despite the months-long delay imposed by the Supreme Court’s decision to take the case, and its ruling, which was widely criticized by legal scholars, the case may finally be allowed to proceed at the end of the month.