Former President Donald Trump appears at Manhattan criminal in New York, Friday, April 19, 2024. (Sarah Yenesel/Pool Photo via AP)
As anticipated by at least one lawyer, a federal judge roundly rejected Donald Trump’s bid to indefinitely stay Jan. 6 civil lawsuits from current and former members of Congress as well as police officers who defended the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, telling him there was “no reason to wait on the Supreme Court” to resolve his question of so-called total presidential immunity nor to wait on the results of his prosecution by special counsel Jack Smith in Washington, D.C., for allegedly criminally conspiring to subvert the 2020 election.
The order from U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta neatly rebuffed all of Trump’s earlier attempts to waylay the litigation, including his claims that he may incriminate himself or violate his Fifth Amendment rights.
Mehta — a former public defender and longtime judge who has presided over many Jan. 6 trials, including the high-level Oath Keepers seditious conspiracy case — told Trump that the ex-president “overstates the significance” of the factual overlap between the Smith criminal prosecution and the civil claims from lawmakers and police who say his conduct leading up to and on Jan. 6 profoundly injured them. The only carve-out the Barack Obama-appointed judge was willing to give Trump was for his tweets on Jan. 6: Trump will not have to admit in the civil case what tweets he wrote, so he will not have to fear incrimination.
Law&Crime takes a look at this and other developments in Trump’s cases in Florida, Georgia, Washington, D.C., and New York.
NEW YORK
CRIMINAL
It’s happening. Trump’s 34-count criminal trial is off and running. A full jury was seated Friday.
A potential juror was excused after comparing the former president to the late scandal-plagued Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. It’s been a bumpy week: at one point, on the second day of the historic trial, presiding New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan excoriated Trump for “audibly muttering” and “gesturing” at a juror over a Facebook “dance party” video celebrating the 2020 election.
Hush money prosecutors offered up a lengthy list of Trump’s bad acts that they intend to use to destroy his credibility with jurors as Trump invited a gag order violation after sharing Jesse Watters’ quote on Truth Social about the trial even after Bragg threatened Trump with incarceration.
Earlier in the week, Bragg’s office made the formal request to hold Trump in contempt for violating the gag order’s prohibition of attacks on known or reasonably foreseeable witnesses. The former president had kicked off the trial by ranting on social media about how he was being silenced, and on the first day of jury selection, the prosecution quickly moved to have him sanctioned.
Who are the attorneys representing Trump, anyway? Law&Crime took a look.
OF NOTE: A man reportedly set himself on fire outside of the courthouse in Manhattan on Friday, CNN reported.
Merchan handed Trump’s team a win this week: he agreed to keep his deposition from E. Jean Carroll’s defamation case against him out of evidence.
CIVIL
The saga of Donald Trump’s efforts to secure a $175 million bond so he can appeal the massive civil fraud judgment against him continued. His lawyers acknowledged the bond was issued without a ‘certificate of qualification.’
New York Justice Arthur Engoron issued an order to show cause and set a hearing for April 22. That’s when New York Attorney General Letitia James will have a chance to explain why the bond should not be approved.
FLORIDA
CRIMINAL
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon ordered Trump valet Walt Nauta to file a grand jury transcript without government witness names and told special counsel Jack Smith he has until April 26 to file a status report on the “landscape of grand jury materials and proceedings implicated in this case.”
On Friday, she denied Nauta’s obstruction challenge but cited conservative judges to show that he raised “reasonable questions.”
Attorneys for the former president made an admitted mistake in a court filing this week that raised some eyebrows about whether one of their own was “indispensable” to the proceedings.
Meanwhile, Trump’s team is hoping Cannon will let them extend case deadlines, telling her it is a “virtually impossible task” for them to handle both this case and Trump’s hush money and election interference trial in New York. Special counsel Jack Smith has already expressed his exasperation with Trump, telling the court his “open-ended” delay demands “must stop.”
OF NOTE: Cannon issued a rare denial this week, refusing to let in pretrial brief as a would-be amicus curiae that contained possible legal arguments about “tyrannical repression” and the Presidential Records Act.
WASHINGTON, D.C.
SUPREME COURT
It’s the bank shot, the last resort, the last hope: On April 25, the only opinions that will matter on Donald Trump’s claim to total immunity will be the nine justices of the nation’s highest court.
Oral arguments will begin at 10 a.m. Stay tuned for Law&Crime’s same-day coverage.
Ahead of arguments this week, Trump offered a historically-questionable and soon to be fiercely debated take on disgraced former President Richard Nixon and the meaning behind his successor Gerald Ford‘s pardon of him.
OF NOTE: Justices appeared dubious and divided during oral arguments in Fischer v. United States, a case that could unwind charges applied to hundreds of Jan. 6 rioters as well as charges in Trump’s criminal election subversion case. Justice Samuel Alito at one point remarked that Fischer’s attorney may be “biting off more than you can chew,” though the justice is likely to rule in his favor. The last day of the term is April 25 but a ruling could come later this summer.
CRIMINAL
A new lawsuit against Trump has cropped up thanks to a watchdog group that has raised serious questions about a mystery $50 million loan and allegations of falsified public financial disclosure reports spanning years.
CIVIL
U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta rejected Trump’s motion to indefinitely stay discovery in civil litigation brought by a number of lawmakers and attorneys seeking to hold him responsible for injuries caused by Jan. 6. Law&Crime spoke to the attorney representing some of the plaintiffs last week.
GEORGIA
It’s outwardly quiet this week for Trump and his racketeering case in Georgia. But the New York Times reported that Burt Jones, however, will be investigated for his role as a fake elector in the 2020 presidential election. Notably, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis was disqualified from investigating Jones in 2022 because she hosted a fundraiser for his political opponent.
OF NOTE: A judge has upheld a $148 million defamation judgment against Trump darling Rudy Giuliani even as the former New York mayor and Georgia RICO co-defendant is in the throes of bankruptcy court proceedings.
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