Washington.- The Supreme Court’s decision on executive immunity on Monday offers everything except certainty that former President Donald J. Trump will not be prosecuted on charges of trying to overturn the last election before voters decide whether to elect him to the White House again in the next election.
But the ruling also opened the door for prosecutors to lay out most of the evidence against Trump in front of a federal judge — and the public — in a broad fact-finding hearing, perhaps before Election Day.
It is not known when the hearing, which was ordered as part of the court ruling, will take place or how long it will last.
But it will answer an important question about whether the justices will send the case to trial, and how much of the case against Trump can survive the ruling that former presidents enjoy immunity from official actions that they acquire while in power.
And that will take place in a federal district court in Washington in front of Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, who was handling the case before it was frozen for more than six months while a series of courts considered his immunity claim.
Almost from the moment Judge Chutkan was assigned to the case, she moved expeditiously, showing little patience for Trump’s efforts to delay her — or for his complaints that he was on the campaign trail.
At one point, he told the former president that “his day job” as a candidate would not affect how he proceeded in the case and later declared that “this trial will not be contingent on the election cycle.”
Trump’s lawyers will not hesitate to try to prolong it as long as possible and if he wins the presidency again, he could order the Justice Department to drop the case.
But if Judge Chutkan sticks to her practice of moving quickly and can schedule the hearing for September or October, it could trigger something extraordinary: a mini-trial taking place in the nation’s capital in the final stretch of the presidential campaign.
Prosecutors are not restricted from pursuing charges arising from unofficial acts, though judges have ruled that they must use evidence and arguments to overcome the presumption that Trump is immune from prosecution for official acts.
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