Trump Bid to Delay His DC Trial May Finally Be Here as Supreme Court Gets Involved

Donald Trump may end up achieving a long-sought delay to his spring 2024 federal criminal trial in Washington, D.C., thanks to a pair of fast-moving cases now up for consideration before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Nothing is official yet.

But the latest court developments that go to the heart of some of the historic criminal charges against the former president have started to upend key parts of the pre-trial schedule and now has legal experts from across the political spectrum predicting U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan's planned March 4, 2024, start date is going to need to be pushed back.

Whether Trump is ultimately successful in securing a postponement beyond Election Day, however, is another matter entirely.

Chutkan ultimately controls the schedule for Trump’s trial, and she made an important decision on that front Wednesday to temporarily pause nearly all of the proceedings in front of her while courts above her resolve the question of whether a former president has immunity from criminal indictment.

"If jurisdiction is returned to this court, it will — consistent with its duty to ensure both a speedy trial and fairness for all parties—consider at that time whether to retain or continue the dates of any still-future deadlines and proceedings, including the trial scheduled for March 4, 2024," Chutkan wrote in her three-page opinion that paused various deadlines and proceedings but didn't permanently vacate them.

Previously, Chutkan had said she has no intention of changing the start date for the Trump trial. But the Obama-appointed judge in her order on Wednesday recognized that she had little choice in considering a new schedule as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and possibly the Supreme Court justices, wade into the immunity matter that's directly relevant to the Trump case.

On that front, the Supreme Court on Monday agreed to make a quick decision on taking the case Special Counsel Jack Smith is pushing the judges for resolution in a bid to get Trump’s trial underway because, “The public has a strong interest in this case proceeding to trial in a timely manner.”

Even so, the top federal prosecutor acknowledged in one of his recent court filings that the March 4 trial date can’t proceed until there’s “a full and final resolution” on Trump’s claims.

Chutkan hasn't said anything about the other case that could cause problems for her trial schedule that's now on its way to the Supreme Court. On Wednesday, the justices straight up accepted a petition for writ of certiorari by Joseph W. Fischer, who court records say is accused of entering the Capitol on Jan. 6 and participating in the riot by pushing police. 

Trump and hundreds of others have been charged with violating the same “obstruction of an official proceeding” statute, opening the door to questions about whether the Supreme Court potentially throwing out that rioter’s case could have implications for at least one big part of Trump’s indictment.

“I think this will likely delay things,” a former senior Trump DOJ official told The Messenger.

The uncertainty of the March trial schedule is something legal experts have been discussing with greater frequency as the Trump federal indictment in D.C. works its way through a myriad number of court skirmishes.

“Even if the case goes directly to the Supreme Court, the justices could still require full briefing and set oral argument, and decide the case sometime after the March 4 trial date, which would delay the trial,” Barbara McQuade, a former Obama-era U.S. attorney and University of Michigan Law School professor, said in an interview before Chutkan paused the trial proceedings.

McQuade added, “The Court likely sees this issue as important, but may not agree with Jack Smith that it is urgent.”

“From my initial skim, it appears Smith’s hoped-for timetable would likely have SCOTUS issuing a ruling by the beginning of February,” national security attorney Brad Moss added in a Monday post on X. “Even with that, March 4th (is) looking less and less viable. Question now is would a delay be a matter of 2-3 weeks or several months.”

Trump’s position has long been to postpone any criminal trial — in Washington, D.C., or in any of the other three cases he faces at the state and federal level — until after the 2024 presidential election. There are currently three trials on the calendar for 2024 and a fourth proposed for next August in Georgia, though each is now saddled with its own degree of uncertainty.

In running to win back the White House, Trump’s campaign message and much of its success in both polling and fundraising has centered around his legal troubles and how he’d seek retribution against the prosecutors and investigators who have targeted him. A victory next November is also all but guaranteed to lead to the Justice Department reversing itself and dropping the federal charges against Trump.

"There is absolutely no reason to rush this sham to trial except to injure President Trump and tens of millions of his supporters," a campaign spokesperson said on Monday after Smith made his initial pitch to the Supreme Court.

In their initial proposal, Trump’s attorneys had requested the case go before a jury in April of 2026, a proposal that Chutkan flatly rejected. Since then, the former president’s lawyers have continued pushing to slow things down, including a request pending before the judge to immediately halt all pre-trial proceedings while their appeal on the immunity question works its way through the court process. 

A spokesman for Smith declined comment on the status of the March 4 trial schedule but pointed to the special counsel’s court filings. To the Supreme Court, the special counsel’s team wrote on Monday: “It is of imperative public importance that respondent’s claims of immunity be resolved by this Court and that respondent’s trial proceed as promptly as possible if his claim of immunity is rejected.”

It is possible for the Supreme Court to move very fast on Smith’s petition on presidential immunity — if it wants.

“The justices may not share the same sense of urgency,” said Jonathan Turley, a professor at George Washington University School of Law who teaches a course on the Supreme Court. “The schedule is entirely up to them.”

While Smith’s office has been litigating to move the case toward trial as quickly as possible, McQuade said the Supreme Court may not have the same priorities.

“Smith's argument presumes that the trial must occur before the election or else Trump will have the potential power to dismiss the case,” she said. “The Court is likely disinclined to engage in such speculation and also likely to see it as not their problem. If Smith were so worried about timing, they may reason, he could have charged the case sooner.”

The next scheduled conference at which the Supreme Court justices meet in private to discuss and vote on petitions for review is Jan. 5, 2024.

However, the court could take up the case any time after Trump’s legal team responds next week, said George Washington Law School Associate Dean Alan Morrison. And it could set a very abbreviated schedule for the case as it did in other historical cases involving the presidency, including Bush v. Gore or U.S. v. Nixon. That might include additional argument days in January or February.

“In theory it could reject Trump's defense without hearing oral argument,” Morrison said. “It could also tell the district judge to go on with the case and take the immunity question up slowly or later.”

Jeffrey Clark, the former Justice Department official who allegedly participated in Trump's effort to subvert the 2020 election results, wrote Wednesday on X that the Supreme Court’s decision to take up the “obstruction of official proceedings” question was, “Huge.”

In a follow-up post, Clark, who is known as "co-conspirator 4" in the underlying indictment against the former president, argued that Chutkan’s trial schedule is “an arbitrary date” that she has the power to change. “

“It's a fervent desire but March 2024 is not a date fixed in the astrological movements of the heavens or etched in stone by the hand of God,” Clark wrote. "The Supreme Court should ignore the politics and let the case proceed on the ordinary track. And if the March 2024 trial date has to slip as a result of that, it has to slip.”