Trump Gets Encouraging Update From Supreme Court As Trial Calendar Shapes Up

The U.S. Supreme Court has released its preliminary calendar for the April 2024 argument session, and it does not include any mention of whether or not justices will take up former President Donald Trump’s claim of presidential immunity – yet. Instead, the court will consider an appeal from a January 6th, 2021 protestor seeking to dismiss a charge of obstructing an official congressional proceeding, the same charge faced by Trump.

Ten days have elapsed since the former president appealed a lower court’s ruling that he is now “citizen Trump” and eligible for prosecution in two separate federal cases. In each, Trump has denied guilt and claimed his words and actions related to the January 6th, 2021 riots at the Capitol and the handling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago were both protected under his authority as a former president. As legal observers have noted, even if the Supreme Court refuses to hear the case, President Trump’s legal team can make a number of procedural moves to push the start date of his federal J6 case into May.

In addition to the possibility of blanket immunity, Trump will benefit from the high court’s hearing of a J6 obstruction charge on April 16th. U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols previously dismissed the obstruction charge against protestor Joseph Fischer, concluding that obstruction was only intended to apply to evidence tampering that obstructs an official proceeding, not the entering of a federal building. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has since overturned that ruling.

Similarly, Trump’s calls for protests that day would fall under protected speech that did not result in obstruction of Congress.

With both of the Republican leader’s federal cases on pause, New York Judge Juan Merchan has decided his legal schedule is clear enough to set a March 25th start date for his state trial, brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. In that case, Trump is charged with falsifying business records to obscure a six-figure payment to an adult film star to silence rumors of an affair in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election.

The case appears to be Trump’s only criminal matter on the horizon. In Georgia, Fulton County prosecutor Fani Willis is mired in controversy about her hiring of a romantic partner, and a state judge is currently mulling whether to disqualify her from the case against Trump. Separate investigations of Willis by the Georgia legislature and U.S. House also threaten to delay bringing the case to trial.

President Trump has made no secret of his intentions to delay his criminal trials as long as possible. Should he win in November, it is almost certain that he would have the authority to dismiss both federal cases against himself. While prosecutors struggle to start the cases, they must contend with a back-end deadline as well: the Justice Department has a longstanding, unwritten policy of pausing all cases with political repercussions 60 days before a major election.