The Supreme Court could fast-track Donald Trump's presidential immunity case, so that the former president is put on trial this summer, a legal analyst said.
Former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance said that two of the three options open to the Supreme Court could allow Judge Tanya Chutkan to put Trump on trial for election interference long before the 2024 presidential election. She wrote that Chutkan has already suggested in another case that she will clear the schedule to allow a Trump trial if she gets the go-ahead from the Supreme Court.
But the slowest of the three options would see a Supreme Court case dragging on long after the election. Trump's trial is currently on hold while the Supreme Court decides what to do.
Vance said the speediest option "would involve denying any further stay, treating Trump's request as one to grant certiorari and denying that request, affirming the Court of Appeals' decision against Trump, and sending the case back to Judge Chutkan to prepare for trial."
The slowest option would involve granting Trump's stay and then ordering briefings on whether the Court should hear the case in full, pushing that decision off for weeks or longer.
The court would then issue a lengthy briefing schedule, as it does in regular Supreme Court cases. It would not decide the case "until so late in the term that a trial before the election is completely off the table."
Vance wrote that the court also has an intermediate option—keeping the stay in place, but expediting briefing and oral argument, like they did with Trump's 14th Amendment case, in which he is contesting his removal from the ballot in Colorado.
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the Colorado case on February 8, on an expedited calendar.
Such a scenario would allow the court to deliver a prompt decision in the election interference case, Joyce wrote.
"This approach seems more reasonable, but again, we just don't know where the votes are on the Court right now. A process like this could still consume a couple of months, but it would still leave Judge Chutkan with the ability to complete discovery and pre-trial motions and schedule the case for trial this summer," she wrote.
"She previously intimated to attorneys in another case that she might cancel summer vacation plans to hold this trial."
Vance wrote that Trump's goal is to delay the trial until he becomes president.
If elected, Trump has a number of options to have the trial scrapped, including appointing a favorable attorney general.
"Trump's primary goal here continues to be (and I know you're going to be shocked) delay. He not only wants the stay that prevents any further preparation for trial to remain in place, he asked SCOTUS [Supreme Court of the United States] to do something else that would afford him an extra measure of delay," Vance wrote.
Newsweek sought email comment from Trump's attorney on Wednesday.
Trump was indicted on four counts of allegedly working to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the run-up to the January 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol. It is one of four criminal cases that Trump is facing while he campaigns as frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination.
He has also pleaded not guilty to charges in the other cases, denying any wrongdoing, and has repeatedly said that they form part of a political witch hunt.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Sean O'Driscoll is a Newsweek Senior Crime and Courts Reporter based in Ireland. His focus is reporting on U.S. law. ... Read more
