WASHINGTON (CN) — Former President Donald Trump’s federal election subversion trial has officially been postponed, following a Friday decision by U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan to vacate the March 4 trial date.
The decision comes after weeks of deliberation by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals regarding the ex-president’s claims that he is immune from prosecution because of his time in the White House.
Chutkan’s decision to vacate the March trial date comes as little surprise, as the case has been on pause since Dec. 13 when Trump raised his theory of presidential immunity to the appeals court and Chutkan had recently scheduled another trial for a Capitol rioter to begin April 2.
The Barack Obama appointee has yet to schedule a new trial date, as she awaits a decision from a D.C. Circuit panel on Trump’s immunity claim.
“The court will set a new scheduled if and when the mandate is returned,” Chutkan wrote in her Friday order.
A three-judge panel made up of U.S. Circuit Judges Florence Pan, Michelle Childs and Karen Henderson heard oral arguments on the appeal Jan. 9, and have yet to issue a ruling on the matter.
The panel was skeptical of the argument made by Trump’s attorney John Sauer that a former president should be immune from criminal liability for actions taken while in office within the “outer perimeter” of the president’s official duties — an expansion of a Supreme Court precedent set in Nixon v. Fitzgerald which established that former presidents are immune from civil liability.
Further, Sauer asserted that the only way a former president can be held criminally liable is if they have already been impeached and convicted by Congress.
John Lauro, Trump’s lead attorney in the district court case, had previously argued that because the Senate had acquitted Trump at his second impeachment trial for inciting the Jan. 6 insurrection, the special counsel’s charges amounted to a violation of the double jeopardy clause.
An exchange between Pan, a Joe Biden appointee, and Sauer made clear just how dangerous the panel viewed the potential blanket immunity.
Pan asked Sauer whether a president who sold pardons to business associates, military secrets to a foreign adversary or ordered Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival could be prosecuted for those crimes.
Sauer said no, pointing to the impeachment process as the constitutionally mandated — and only — method of accountability.
Trump, the front-runner for the GOP nomination, has repeatedly tried to delay the proceedings, first demanding Chutkan recuse herself because she's biased against him, then appealing a gag order imposed in the case and finally raising his immunity claim to the D.C. Circuit.
Trump is expected to appeal any negative ruling to the full bench of the Circuit, or potentially the Supreme Court, which is dominated by Republican-appointed justices, three by Trump. Any additional rounds of appeals will likely take months, pushing a potentially monthslong trial closer to the November election.
If the trial does not conclude before the election and Trump wins, he could order his new attorney general throw out the case altogether. If he is convicted and still manages to win, he could potentially use his presidential pardon to absolve himself.
Special counsel Jack Smith, who levied four charges against Trump for his efforts to overturn his 2020 electoral defeat which laid the groundwork for the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, has fought for the trial to begin and end well before the 2024 election.
Smith has argued that a timely trial is of the utmost importance to allow the American public to make a fully informed decision at the ballot box.
That sentiment was reflected by a recent Harvard CAPS-Harris poll, which found that of his four criminal cases, Trump’s Washington case is likely to have the most impact on his electoral chances.
The poll, published on Jan. 22, found that if Donald Trump is convicted by a Washington jury, he would lose a head-to-head matchup with Biden 52% to 48%.
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