Trump election interference case resumes in Washington | Wilnesh News

Federal criminal election interference case against Donald Trump opens washington d.c.Thursday, after nearly a year of delays over whether he could be prosecuted for actions he committed while president.

Judge Tanya Chatkan heard arguments Thursday morning on how to schedule legal briefs ahead of a possible trial in the case.

“It may be a futile exercise to set a trial date now,” Chatchan said in U.S. District Court at the end of the hearing.

She said she would issue an order setting out a timetable for motions as soon as possible.

A Trump trial in the case could come as early as 2025 – if at all – as Chutkan’s ruling on whether the case can go to trial will almost certainly be appealed by one side or the other.

“One of the guiding principles here is that we should have a timetable that only leads to one interlocutory appeal,” Thomas Winddom, the prosecutor in the case, told Chutkan, using the term that refers to the time before or during a trial. An appeal occurs rather than an “interlocutory appeal”.

“We knew there were going to be interlocutory appeals. We were just trying to limit it to one,” Windom said.

Republican candidate Trump will face Democratic candidate Vice President Kamala Harris in the November presidential election.

Two months ago, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Trump enjoys presumptive immunity from prosecution for his official actions as president, but that he is not immune from prosecution for his unofficial actions.

The justices sent the case back to Chutkan to decide what evidence could be used against Trump in any trial charging him with illegally trying to overturn his loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election. Unfavorable issues are adjudicated.

Special counsel Jack Smith, who is prosecuting Trump, last week obtained a superseding indictment against the former president that contains the same four criminal counts he faces in the case but omits omissions that could be ruled against by the Supreme Court Allegation of obstructive conduct.

Trump did not attend Thursday’s hearing, and his defense team entered a not guilty plea on his behalf.

Trump’s attorney, John Lauro, told Chatkan he wanted to file a motion challenging Trump’s prosecution because Smith, who led the prosecution team, was not legally appointed by U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland.

Chatkan asked Lauro why such a motion had not been filed before and suggested he had not done so because of precedent from a federal appeals court in Washington supporting the legality of the attorney general’s appointment of special prosecutors like Smith.

Lauro cited a July 1 ruling by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas that suggested Smith’s appointment may be unconstitutional.

Two weeks after the Supreme Court’s ruling, Florida federal judge Erin Cannon dismissed a separate criminal indictment against Trump on the grounds that appointing Smith as special counsel violated the Appointments Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

In that case, Trump was accused of withholding classified government documents and obstructing efforts to recover them after leaving the White House.

Lauro pointed to Cannon’s ruling Thursday while arguing to Chatkan that he should be allowed to file a motion challenging Smith’s appointment as it applies to election interference cases.

Chatkan said she found Cannon’s decision “unconvincing.”

But she told Lauro she would grant him a request to allow him to file a motion challenging Smith’s appointment but let him address the question of why a previous ruling by the D.C. Court of Appeals did not preclude such a motion.

“We believe that upon your receipt of our motion documents you will dismiss this complaint,” Lauro told the judge.

Smith appealed Cannon’s dismissal of the confidential documents case.