The Supreme Court has scheduled argument for April 25 to review Donald Trump’s claim that he is immune from criminal prosecution on charges of trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
The case will be heard on the final day of the court’s argument calendar and will determine whether and how quickly Trump faces trial in D.C. for allegedly trying to block Joe Biden’s election victory. The high court’s decision to consider Trump’s claims, rather than letting stand a lower court decision that he can be prosecuted, drew criticism for further delaying the election obstruction trial. It was originally scheduled to begin this week.
The former president, who is on the cusp of securing the 2024 Republican nomination, has tried to push the D.C. trial and others he faces until after the general election. If Trump is reelected, he could try to order the Justice Department to drop the federal charges against him. In addition, it is Justice Department policy not to prosecute a sitting president.
Last week, the justices announced their plans to consider the unanimous ruling from a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which rejected Trump’s sweeping assertion of immunity from prosecution. On Wednesday, the court set oral argument for April 25, adding another day to its calendar.
Trump’s pretrial proceedings in D.C. remain on hold until a ruling is issued. The high court could decide the matter at any time after argument and almost certainly will do so before its term ends in late June or early July, most likely pushing any D.C. trial into the second half of the summer or the fall.
The justices have shown they can move quickly. They took less than a month to issue a unanimous ruling Monday that keeps Trump on the ballot and reverses a Colorado opinion that disqualified him from returning to office.
Whatever the court decides in the D.C. immunity case could also have implications for Trump’s other legal troubles. Trump, who has pleaded not guilty in all four of his criminal cases, has raised immunity issues in his federal case in Florida, where he is charged with illegally retaining classified materials after he left the White House and obstructing government efforts to retrieve them.
Trump has also brought up the issue of presidential immunity in Georgia, where he faces state charges for allegedly participating in a massive conspiracy to undo the 2020 election results in that state.
His fourth indictment comes from New York, where he is scheduled for trial starting later this month on charges of falsifying business records to cover up a hush money payment to an adult-film star during the 2016 election. It will be the first criminal trial of a former president – and the first criminal trial of a leading presidential candidate.
(c) 2024, The Washington Post · Ann E. Marimow
