Election calendar ‘irrelevant’ as Trump’s Jan. 6 case resumes

A key federal election interference hearing against former President Donald Trump began Thursday morning in Washington, the first legal proceedings involving Trump since the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision on presidential immunity.

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Judge Tanya Chutkan will have to decide what evidence will be allowed in the case.

The new court hearing comes two months after a Supreme Court decision in which all six conservative justices ruled that presidential immunity applies for official acts. The Supreme Court said presidents cannot be charged with crimes when the acts involve official acts in office.

Supreme Court ruling puts four criminal cases against Trump on hold.

Chutkan made it clear that presidential immunity issues must be “resolved at the earliest possible moment.”

The judge did not say when a potential trial could begin, but said: “The election process and the election date are not relevant here.” She added: “This court is not interested in the election timeline.”

The Supreme Court’s decision significantly weakened Special Counsel Jack Smith’s case, legal experts said.

“The Supreme Court has now given lower courts a lot of leeway to interpret which of these actions are within the president’s official scope and which are outside that scope,” said Paul Schiff Berman, a law professor at George Washington University.

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Last week, Smith unveiled a new, superseding indictment against the former president that includes the same criminal charges, including conspiracy and obstruction of justice.

Prosecutors say Trump knowingly spread lies that there was fraud in the 2020 election. And on Jan. 6, 2021, when rioters breached the U.S. Capitol, he “exploited the riot” for personal gain.

Trump has pleaded not guilty and called the case “election interference,” writing on Truth Social: “All of these frauds will fail, just as Crazy Jack’s fraud in Florida was completely rejected, and we will win the most important election in our country’s history on November 5th.”

There are no plans to hold a hearing before the elections.

“I think whatever Judge Chutkan does, it will almost certainly be appealed to the District Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, and ultimately, perhaps the Supreme Court will revisit this case,” Schiff Berman said.

During Thursday’s hearing, the former president’s lawyers argued that the calls between Trump and Vice President Mike Pence should amount to a resignation, an argument Chutkan rejected.