Donald Trump pleaded not guilty on Thursday, via his legal team, to the revised charges in his federal criminal election interference investigation, in the first hearing in the Washington DC case since the US supreme court gave its immunity ruling.
The former US president and current Republican nominee for the White House in this November’s election was not present in federal court in the capital.
The US district judge, Tanya Chutkan, said she would not set a schedule in the case at this status conference for the prosecution and defense teams, but hopes to do so later on Thursday.
The case relates to Trump’s conduct surrounding events after he lost his re-election bid in November 2020 to his Democratic rival Joe Biden, culminating in the insurrection at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, by thousands of extreme Trump supporters intent on overturning the election result.
Chutkan is hearing arguments about the potential next steps in the election subversion prosecution of Trump for the first time since the supreme court narrowed the case by ruling that former presidents are entitled to broad immunity from criminal charges.
As the hearing opened, the judge noted that it has been almost a year since she had seen the lawyers in her courtroom. The case has been frozen since last December as Trump pursued his appeal.
The defense lawyer John Lauro joked to the judge: “Life was almost meaningless without seeing you.”
Chutkan replied: “Enjoy it while it lasts.”
A not guilty plea was entered on Trump’s behalf for a revised indictment that the special counsel Jack Smith’s team filed last week to strip out certain allegations and comply with the supreme court’s ruling in July. Prosecutors have said they can be ready at any time to file a legal brief laying out its position on how to apply the justices’ immunity opinion to the case.
Defense lawyers are challenging the legitimacy of the case and said they intend to file multiple motions to dismiss the case, including one that piggybacks off a Florida judge’s ruling that Smith’s appointment was unconstitutional.
Neither side envisions a trial happening before the November election. The case is one of two federal prosecutions against Trump, in a host of legal cases. The other, charging him with illegally hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, was dismissed in July by the US district judge Aileen Cannon, who said Smith’s appointment as special counsel was unlawful.
Smith’s team has appealed that ruling. Trump’s lawyers say they intend to ask Chutkan to dismiss the election case on the same grounds.
Reuters and the Associated Press contributed reporting.
Source: Elections - theguardian.com
