A month after the Supreme Court issued a controversial decision that presidents enjoy immunity for "official acts," District Judge Tanya Chutkan has the federal election case against Donald Trump back in her hands — and has the task of working out for herself what acts fall under the justices' ruling so the trial can proceed.
How she chooses to move forward — and engage with what the Supreme Court decided — sets the tone for everything that happens next, wrote Jesse Wegman for The New York Times.
Her task now, Wegman wrote, is "going line by line through the special counsel Jack Smith’s 45-page indictment and separating the charges that involve official acts from those that are unofficial. The former must be dismissed; the latter might survive," he wrote.
"Now Chutkan has to clean up the mess the right-wing majority made in its ruling, which created a shockingly broad yet poorly defined zone of immunity from criminal prosecution for presidents who can argue that they were engaged in their 'official' duties," he added.
The "mini-trial" she'll have to hold to sort this all out, Wegman added, is "a far cry from an actual jury trial — which could and should have taken place months ago and surely would have if the defendant was not named Trump — but at this point it’s the only chance the American people will have to get more clarity on the details of the former president’s role in the Jan. 6 insurrection."
Additionally, said Wegman, Chutkan can now "call the justices' bluff" by applying their standards to determine which parts of the indictment can survive.
"The best way to get an answer to that question is to apply the methodological rigor the court refused to use," Wegman wrote. Using the court's logic, charges and evidence that involve, for example, conversations Trump had with Vice President Mike Pence, will have to be thrown out as infringing on immunity — but most of the rest of it can survive.
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"A vast majority of Trump’s behavior on and around Jan. 6, 2021, was not taken in any official capacity and should not be immune from prosecution," Wegman concluded. "This is obvious to anyone with a pair of eyes and a memory of that awful day. The question is whether that category includes the right-wing supermajority of the Supreme Court."
All of this comes as other legal obstacles have bogged down Trump's other two criminal cases — the election interference case in Georgia and the classified documents one in Florida — ensuring they cannot go to trial before the election, if indeed at all. Trump has already been convicted of felony charges in the Manhattan hush money trial.
