Judge Hands Donald Trump the Delay He Wanted

A judge has adjourned a January 6 lawsuit against former President Donald Trump until September, virtually guaranteeing that it will not come to trial before the presidential election.

Representative Barbara Lee was lead plaintiff in a civil lawsuit taken with several fellow House Democrats who said they were impeded in their duties by the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

The case was taken under an 1871 act that was intended to prevent the Ku Klux Klan from intimidating members of Congress against carrying out their duties. D.C. District Judge Amit Mehta ruled on Monday that "immunity-related discovery" shall continue until September 11, 2024.

After discovery ends in September, both sides will present their arguments on why Trump does or does not have presidential immunity from the civil lawsuit—not to be confused with the presidential immunity from criminal lawsuits that the Supreme Court is to look at. The former could last several months.

Newsweek sought email comment on Tuesday from Donald Trump's attorney.

If Trump is granted immunity, the case is over.

If not, there is more discovery expected on the facts of the case and a trial will likely not come to court until after inauguration in January 2025.

Trump, who has consistently said he is seeking delays of his trials, can then apply in federal court to have the case postponed until he has left office.

On December 4, 2023, Lee had released a statement in which she said "justice is owed to the Congressional staff, Capitol support staff, law enforcement, and members of Congress who feared for their lives on January 6, 2021. I look forward to seeing Mr. Trump in court."

MSNBC legal correspondent Lisa Rubin, wrote on X, formerly Twitter, on Monday that a higher court, the Washington D.C. Circuit, had handed the case back to Mehta after reaffirming that "former presidents are entitled to civil immunity for acts even on the 'outer perimeter' of their official duties.

"But they [the D.C. Circuit] held Trump had not yet shown his entitlement to such immunity and would instead have a chance to prove in the lower court that 'his alleged actions in the run-up to and on January 6 were taken in his official capacity as President.'"

"That opinion was handed down on December 1, 2023. And now, in the last days of April, Judge Amit Mehta, the district court judge to whom the case has been assigned, has allowed the parties to conduct 'immunity-related discovery' through September 11, 2024," Rubin wrote.

She said this does not bode well for the criminal case against Donald Trump in Washington, D.C., in which he is accused of trying to undermine Joe Biden's win in the 2020 presidential election.

Trump, the presumptive Republican candidate in the 2024 presidential election, was indicted on four counts of allegedly working to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the run-up to the 2021 January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. He has denied the charges.

It is one of four criminal cases that Trump is facing. He has also pleaded not guilty in the other cases, denying any wrongdoing, and has repeatedly said that they form part of a political witch hunt.

The election fraud proceedings, which are before Tanya Chutkan, also a D.C. district judge, have been frozen while the Supreme Court considers the presidential immunity issue.

"Now think about the criminal case before Judge Chutkan: In a world where the Supreme Court similarly decides there must be further lower court proceedings to determine whether Trump can mount an immunity defense, can that case be tried before 2025? Increasingly, I think not—and that might be the only win Trump wants or needs," Rubin wrote.