Supreme Court seems poised to allow Trump's D.C. trial, but not soon

Source: Washington Post

Supreme Court seems poised to allow Trump's D.C. trial, but not soon

Updated just now April 25, 2024 at 3:16 p.m. EDT

The Supreme Court appeared poised to reject Donald Trump's sweeping claim that he is immune from prosecution on charges of trying to subvert the 2020 election, but in a way that is likely to significantly delay his stalled election-interference trial in D.C.

During nearly three hours of oral argument, several conservative justices said they were concerned about hampering the power of future presidents or subjecting them to the whims of a politically motivated prosecutor. Liberal justices emphasized that a president is not above the law.

Much of the discussion has focused on which allegations in the indictment involve potentially official acts, which means the high court's ruling is likely to create more work for the lower courts before trial proceedings can restart.

Here's what to know
* The Supreme Court could rule any time between oral arguments and the end of the term in late June or early July.
* Three justices who are part of the conservative majority were picked by Trump, but the Supreme Court has generally been unreceptive to Trump's assertions of immunity and efforts to keep records private.
* The immunity arguments take place as Trump is in New York facing state trial on charges of falsifying business records related to a hush money payment during the 2016 election. Follow our live coverage of the trial here. (1)

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Rachel Weiner, Devlin Barrett and Perry Stein contributed to this report.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

By Ann Marimow
Ann Marimow covers the Supreme Court for The Washington Post. She joined The Post in 2005, and has spent a decade writing about legal affairs and the federal judiciary. She previously covered state government and politics in California, New Hampshire and Maryland. Twitter https://twitter.com/amarimow

(1) https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/04/25/trump-hush-money-trial-live-updates-david-pecker-testimony/

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/04/25/supreme-court-trump-immunity-case/

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The story keeps getting updated. Now, at 5:00 p.m., the latest timestamp is "April 25, 2024 at 4:23 p.m. EDT."

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4 min ago
Legal expert: July ruling will 'practically close' window for trial by election
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/04/25/supreme-court-trump-immunity-case/

By Spencer Hsu
Investigative reporter

It was clear from questioning that Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and other justices are concerned that the lower court was "a little too sweeping in saying there was no immunity, period," said Randall D. Eliason, a former federal prosecutor and George Washington University law professor.

"The sense I got from most of the questioning is that a number of justices are concerned about the idea, this opinion that there's never immunity for anything," Eliason said. He said Dreeben's argument made sense that rather than immunity former presidents should be able to raise unique legal defenses that would apply to certain presidential actions, "but I'm not sure he's going to get a majority opinion to go along with that."

Whether Trump can be tried through a verdict in Washington "is going to depend a lot on what they say and how they write it, and very significantly how quickly they do it," Eliason said. "If they wait until the last day of the term [in late June or early July], the window for getting the case tried before the election is practically closed, or close to it. You may start before the election, but you may not finish it."

Trump's trial judge, U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, might not take that long to decide between immune and nonimmune conduct if the Supreme Court issues a clear ruling, but the question remains whether Trump will be able to again appeal her decisions before trial can begin, a question that remains in dispute between the sides and that did not come up in Thursday's argument.

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