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U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan in Washington is expected to
decide in the coming weeks which aspects of the indictment
obtained by Special Counsel Jack Smith must be tossed out after
the Supreme Court ruled that former presidents are entitled to
broad immunity for official actions taken as president.
The high court's decision to take up the case, which it heard on
its last day of arguments in April and ruled on July 1, made it
all but impossible for the case to go to trial before Republican
presidential candidate Trump faces Democratic Vice President
Kamala Harris in the Nov. 5 election.
The Supreme Court, whose 6-3 conservative majority includes
three Trump appointees, formally returned the case to Chutkan’s
courtroom, allowing prosecutors and Trump’s lawyers to begin the
next legal battle over how to apply the court’s ruling.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to four criminal counts accusing
him of a multi-part conspiracy to subvert his 2020 election
loss.
The case had been paused since December while Trump pressed his
immunity claim.
The Supreme Court tasked Chutkan with deciding whether certain
actions by Trump -- including plans to organize slates of
pro-Trump presidential electors in battleground states he lost
and his communications to supporters ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021,
attack on the U.S. Capitol -- were private actions taken as a
political candidate or official acts that are covered by
presidential immunity.
(Reporting by Andrew Goudsward; Editing by Scott Malone and
Daniel Wallis)
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