Special counsel Jack Smith’s election subversion case against former President Donald Trump has been dropped from the public docket in Washington, indicating the court will miss its March 4 trial date while it waits for a federal appeals court to weigh in on Mr. Trump’s claim of presidential immunity.
Judge Tanya Chutkan announced the decision in an order Friday, saying the court “will set a new schedule if and when” the immunity issue is settled by the appeals court.
The delay makes it likelier that Mr. Trump’s first brush with a criminal trial this year will be in New York, where he faces nearly three dozen counts of falsifying business records related to hush-money payments to an adult film star and others in the run-up to the 2016 election. The trial is slated to start on March 25 in Manhattan.
New York courts had shown deference to Mr. Smith’s case, which accuses Mr. Trump of conspiring against the U.S. and its voters by trying to overturn the 2020 election results through a false slate of state electors and other efforts. The Smith case is considered the marquee criminal case facing Mr. Trump, who also faces a federal trial on his storage of government documents in Florida and an Atlanta-area case related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 results in Georgia.
The March date for Mr. Smith’s election trial dropped off the public calendar this week at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, according to multiple reports.
The delay is tied to Mr. Trump’s attempt to claim presidential immunity against Mr. Smith’s charges. The special prosecutor doesn’t want to proceed to trial until the matter is settled in higher courts.
Mr. Trump’s attorney told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on Jan. 9 that he can’t be prosecuted for actions he took as president because he wasn’t impeached and convicted in Congress.
Mr. Trump says he was acting in his official capacity when he tried to root out election fraud in 2020 and overturn the results.
The appeals court hasn’t ruled, and it’s unclear if the Supreme Court will take up the matter. In the meantime, Mr. Smith’s case is on hold.
In New York, Judge Juan Merchan has scheduled a mid-February hearing that will signal whether Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg will get the first chance to prosecute the hush-money case against Mr. Trump this year.
Mr. Trump says the criminal charges against him are unfounded and part of a Democratic plot to thwart his political ambitions. He recently lost a second defamation trial to former magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll and is awaiting a judgment in a separate civil action that alleges his real estate company submitted fraudulent financial statements to gain favorable terms on loans and insurance.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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