The criminal prosecution of former President Donald Trump over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election is expected to be delayed by another month. Special counsel prosecutors have requested additional time to assess the impact of the US Supreme Court’s recent decision on presidential immunity. The Supreme Court ruled last month that former presidents are entitled to some degree of immunity from criminal prosecution, marking a victory for Trump.
On Thursday, the prosecutors on special counsel Jack Smith’s team told Tanya Chutkan, the US district judge presiding over the case, that they needed her to delay until August 30 a deadline to submit a possible schedule for how to proceed with a complicated fact-finding mission ordered by the court.
“The Government continues to assess the new precedent set forth last month in the Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v United States, including through consultation with other Department of Justice components,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing.
Trump is accused of overseeing a sprawling effort to subvert the results of the 2020 presidential election, including two counts of conspiring to obstruct the certification of the election results, conspiring to defraud the government, and conspiring to disenfranchise voters. The alleged illegal conduct includes Trump pressing justice department officials to open sham investigations, Trump obstructing Congress from certifying the election, including by trying to co-opt his vice-president, Trump helping prompt the Capitol attack, and Trump’s plot to recruit fake electors.
The Supreme Court’s ruling has created three categories of criminal accountability for presidents: core presidential functions that carry absolute immunity, official acts of the presidency that carry presumptive immunity, and unofficial acts that carry no immunity. The ruling is expected to result in some of the charges against Trump being struck, and Judge Chutkan will need to determine through a fact-finding exercise if any other charges that might come under official acts must be expunged.
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