Trump Jan. 6 case formally sent back to Judge Chutkan after bombshell SCOTUS immunity ruling
Last year, former President Donald Trump's legal hurdles looked too high to overcome, according to many legal observers.
But as everything played out, that proved not to be the case, especially when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled heavily in Trump's favor on his immunity defense.
According to the Associated Press, Trump's election subversion case has been formally sent back to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan to start the proceedings which will determine what Trump can be charged with now that he has the high court's ruling in his corner.
The AP noted:
The four-count indictment, one of four criminal cases brought against Trump last year, accuses him of illegally conspiring to cling to the presidency by working with aides to try to undo the results of the election he lost to Democrat Joe Biden.
Because of the extremely complex nature of the case in the wake of the Supreme Court's bombshell immunity ruling, a large number of motions and proceedings will take place before a trial date is set.
That means that there's virtually no chance of Trump facing trial before the November election, which presumably disappointed a number of his critics and Special Counsel Jack Smith's prosecutors.
Trump is still the odds-on favorite to win in November, which means if he does, and the trial is finally set, he'll likely have already appointed an attorney general who will quash the cases against him by that time.
Trump's federal election subversion charges are officially back in Judge Chutkan's hands.#SCOTUS today formally sent down its judgment in the immunity case to the DC Circuit (takes 32 days by default, and no one asked to expedite).
Immediately, DC Circuit passed it to Chutkan pic.twitter.com/UE7GQOCxvo
— Zach Schonfeld (@ZachASchonfeld) August 2, 2024
Chutkan will get to decide which charges can be pursued given the high court's new definition of what constituted "official" acts during and after Trump's presidency.
Some, or much of the case, could be disregarded in the wake of the immunity ruling, drastically altering the prosecution's arguments.
The news also came just weeks after special counsel Jack Smith's classified documents case was tossed due to the judge deciding that Smith's appointment was illegal. It was one of Trump's most profound legal victories within the past few years.
It was noted that the Department of Justice is appealing that decision.
Other Trump cases, like the one out of Georgia involving Fulton County D.A. Fani Willis, has been indefinitely delayed.
They thought they could get him by weaponizing the justice system against him and, so far, he's pretty much in the clear and unscathed.