Trial judge retakes control of Trump 2020 election case after immunity ruling

Washington — U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan has once again taken control over the 2020 election-related prosecution against former President Donald Trump and could soon lay out how the case will move forward in the coming weeks. 

The case was sent back to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit after the Supreme Court ruled in a 6-3 decision that former presidents are immune from prosecution for official acts they took while in office. The three-judge panel at the appeals court level — which previously found that Trump could not be shielded from criminal charges — issued a brief, unsigned order sending the matter back to the district court on Friday.

“It is ordered, on the court’s own motion, that this case be remanded to the district court for further proceedings consistent with the Supreme Court’s opinion,” the D.C. Circuit said.

Chutkan takes the reins

Chutkan is now expected to interpret and apply the Supreme Court’s ruling. She will have to decide which alleged conduct described in special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment of the former president is “official” in nature and which could be the subject of criminal prosecution. 

Smith charged Trump about a year ago with four counts tied to his conduct after the 2020 presidential election, including conspiracy to defraud the U.S. Prosecutors alleged the former president worked to subvert the peaceful transfer of power through a pressure campaign at the state and federal level that culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack. 

Trump pleaded not guilty to the charges. He denied wrongdoing and claimed the prosecution was politically motivated. 

While concluding that former presidents have legal protections from charges for alleged acts that fell within their official duties, the Supreme Court rejected Trump’s claims that he is entitled to sweeping, absolute immunity unless impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate. 

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the opinion for the court’s conservative majority. He divided presidential conduct into three categories: official acts that are part of presidents’ “core constitutional powers”; other official acts that are outside their “exclusive authority”; and unofficial acts. Presidents have “absolute” immunity for the first category, “presumptive” immunity for the second, and no immunity for the third.

In applying that legal test, the high court ruled the charges against Trump could not be tied to conduct related to his official role as president, like allegations that he worked with Justice Department officials in a plot to investigate the election results, which he believed were rife with fraud. Other alleged conduct contained in charging documents — including Trump’s interactions with then-Vice President Mike Pence ahead of the Jan. 6 Electoral College certification by Congress — is a closer call, according to the Supreme Court’s decision. As a result, Chutkan will have to presume that Trump is immune from charges tied to that conduct, too, but the Justice Department will have an opportunity to rebut that presumption in future proceedings. 

Chutkan’s work is likely to be most consumed in determining whether the rest of Trump’s alleged actions — namely that he worked to organize false slates of electors, communicated with outside attorneys to execute that plan and urged his supporters to descend on Washington on Jan. 6 — fall within the scope of official or unofficial acts. 

Roberts wrote that any protections from prosecution “may depend on the content of context” of the allegations and instructed Chutkan to “carefully analyze the indictment’s remaining allegations to determine whether they too involve conduct for which a president must be immune from prosecution.” 

Chutkan first ceded control of Trump’s case to the higher courts after she rejected his claim of absolute presidential immunity last year, writing in a December 2023 opinion that presidents do not enjoy a “lifelong ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ pass” after they leave office. Trump appealed to get the case fully dismissed, which resulted in a pause in the proceedings until the matter was resolved.

While Trump did not ultimately receive the full immunity from prosecution he initially sought in Chutkan’s courtroom, his legal team successfully delayed the criminal proceedings from going forward for more than eight months. 

Chutkan is now faced with overseeing the case in the run-up to the 2024 election, though it’s highly unlikely a trial will take place before Election Day on Nov. 5.

Justice Department officials have said there is no legal impediment that would preclude them from proceeding with the case against Trump during the election season. For her part, Chutkan told Trump and his legal team last year that “politics stops at this courtroom door.”

The Supreme Court also limited prosecutors’ use of a key federal charge brought against hundreds of Jan. 6 rioters. Trump has also been charged with the count — obstruction of an official proceeding — and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, but Smith’s team argued the legal framework in the case does not apply to Trump’s indictment. 

The former president could still seek to have the two obstruction-related charges tossed out based on the Supreme Court’s decision, though it’s unclear whether he would succeed. 

As the 2020 election-related case against Trump appears to get going again, Smith’s other prosecution against the former president was dismissed by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon in Florida last month after she found the special counsel was not legally appointed. 

Smith has appealed the ruling and litigation is set to commence later this month, but Trump’s successful challenge of his appointment in the classified documents case could pose further challenges to the case in Chutkan’s court.