Jack Smith seeks to expedite Trump’s appeals in election interference case amid delays

WASHINGTON — A date has not yet been set for former President Donald Trump’s federal trial over his scheme to overturn his 2020 presidential loss by spreading what an indictment called his “baseless, factually unreasonable and ever-changing” claims of mass election fraud.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan held a status hearing in federal court in Washington on Thursday, nine days after a new federal grand jury returned a superseding indictment against Trump charging him with the same four felonies he first faced in his original indictment last August: conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against human rights.

Chutkan acknowledged that the case did not move forward quickly because of Trump’s appeal to the Supreme Court, which ruled that Trump has some presidential immunity and sent the matter back to the lower court.

Chutkan said Thursday he would not let the 2024 election determine the timeline for the case and said Trump attorney John Lauro appeared to be arguing that the November election should affect the pretrial briefing schedule.

“It seems to me that what they are trying to do is to affect the presentation of evidence in this case so as not to interfere with a presidential election,” Chutkan said.

“I understand there is an election pending,” he said. “This court is not interested in the electoral calendar… It is not something that it is going to consider.”

Noting that the case has been “pending for a year,” Chutkan said the court “can’t even really contemplate a trial date” yet because of pending appeal issues.

“We are not racing toward the finish line,” Chutkan said, adding that it would be “an exercise in futility” to set a trial date at this point, given the appeal issues.

Chutkan said he would take all arguments into account before issuing a timetable in the case.

On Thursday, Chutkan also accepted Trump’s not guilty plea in connection with the indictment, which Lauro filed on Trump’s behalf after the former president signed documents authorizing Lauro to do so. Trump was not present in the courtroom.

The latest indictment against Trump removed references to some evidence in his initial indictment following the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling — most notably, the administration’s claim that Trump sought to weaponize the Justice Department on behalf of his presidential campaign, including by recruiting a right-wing civil environmental lawyer and election denier, Jeffrey Clark, to potentially take over the Justice Department just days before the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

An attorney for Smith’s office told Chutkan on Thursday that prosecutors are aware that Trump’s team plans to file another appeal all the way to the Supreme Court and that Smith’s office is seeking to expedite the process.

“We should structure a timeline that leads to a single additional interlocutory appeal,” said U.S. Attorney Thomas Windom, who works for Smith’s office. “We believe that all of the immunity determinations should be made at the same time, simultaneously.”

Trump’s lawyer, Lauro, said the defense plans to challenge not only the indictment itself but also Smith’s appointment.

“We have an illegitimate prosecutor, we have an illegitimate prosecution,” Lauro said, arguing that Smith’s appointment as special prosecutor was not authorized by law and describing Smith as a “private citizen.”

A Trump-appointed federal judge in Florida ruled that Smith was unlawfully appointed when he dismissed a separate classified documents case against Trump in July. That ruling would affect many of the special prosecutors who have been appointed over decades. The Justice Department is appealing, and Attorney General Merrick Garland told NBC News that U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon’s ruling was wrong.

“Do I look like someone who would make that basic mistake about the law?” said Garland, who named Smith. “I don’t think so.”

Chutkan said in court Thursday that he did not find the Florida judge’s decision persuasive.

Following Trump’s initial indictment last August, Chutkan set a trial date for March 2024, meaning a verdict would most likely have been issued by now and, if convicted, Trump would likely face sentencing.

While numerous January 6 defendants have told federal courts that they regret being gullible enough to be fooled and manipulated by Trump’s false election claims (some of them even describing themselves as “idiots”), Trump has continued to spread false information about the election, even as Fox News and his attorney Rudy Giuliani have settled and lost civil cases, respectively, over their false claims about the 2020 election, resulting in findings totaling hundreds of millions of dollars.

Trump recently told a podcaster that he lost the last election “narrowly” — in fact, he lost the popular vote by seven million and the Electoral College count by a significant margin — before adding that he still thinks “the election was fraudulent, and a lot of people felt it was.”

Federal prosecutors have charged more than 1,400 people in connection with the Jan. 6 attack and secured more than 1,000 convictions. Hundreds of rioters have received probationary sentences, but more than 500 have been sentenced to terms of incarceration ranging from a few days behind bars to 22 years in federal prison in the case of former Proud Boy chairman Enrique Tarrio, who was convicted of seditious conspiracy.