Following its controversial immunity ruling, the Supreme Court on Friday sent Donald Trump’s Jan. 6 election interference case back to a federal judge in Washington, DC, The Washington Post reported. U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan will now decide how much of the case can survive the high court’s new “immunity” test, which grants presidents immunity for “official acts.”
In a 6-3 decision last month split along ideological lines, the Supreme Court’s right-wing majority ruled that Trump and other presidents are absolutely immune from prosecution when carrying out their official duties. But they did carve out narrow exceptions for private acts by certain official acts that can be taken to trial, while leaving it up to lower courts to figure out what that means.
Former federal prosecutor and George Washington University law professor Randal Eliason told the Post that some of the urgency to act on the election obstruction case has been reduced in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision, even as some hope the special prosecutor Jack Smith will be given an opportunity to present the evidence he’s gathered before November.
“There’s no point in haste now, because there’s no way to do the trial now before the election,” Eliason said. Should the GOP presidential nominee return to the White House, his Justice Department will almost certainly drop the case at his demand. If Trump loses the election, however, “there will be plenty of time to do a trial next year and get all the issues right,” the law professor said.
Whatever Judge Chutkan decides is also subject to appeal, meaning the Supreme Court could again step in to put a stop to any prosecution if its six conservative justices decide their immunity ruling is not being respected.
“This essentially means Chutkan now will now have the first crack at figuring out (1) what the decision means and (2) how it impacts Jack Smith’s case against Trump,” legal analyst and Chris Geidner, editor of Law Dork, wrote on Threads. “[T]his will be messy for a while.”