Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump listens to questions during a presidential debate with President Joe Biden, Thursday, June 27, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert.)
In the days since the Supreme Court issued its ruling granting Donald Trump limited immunity from prosecution for official acts taken while in office, clouds have quickly formed over the many criminal indictments of the former president and from them, a deluge of filings are expected to emerge challenging the validity and constitutionality of the cases. This week, the first drop from those clouds slipped free and landed squarely in Manhattan where Trump, now emboldened by the Supreme Court majority he helped to create, argued that his 34-count hush-money and election interference conviction must be thrown out because anything short of that would lead to an executive branch that “cannibalizes” itself.
While clutching to the Supreme Court’s ruling, Trump’s attorneys vigorously lashed out at Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, calling him and fellow prosecutors stubborn while insisting that it was Bragg’s “tremendous and unwarranted arrogance” that led all parties to where they now find themselves: defending an unconstitutional indictment, trial and conviction.
“Here, [the District Attorney of New York] wrongfully and unconstitutionally forced President Trump to litigate official acts evidence at trial,” the motion to dismiss the conviction said. “They did so proudly and unapologetically, in a manner that speaks to the political motivations driving the elected local official responsible for this unjust prosecution on behalf of President Biden.”
Bragg has until July 24 to respond.
Law&Crime takes a look at this and other key developments in Trump’s cases in New York, Florida, Georgia, and Washington, D.C.
NEW YORK
CRIMINAL
Trump would have been sentenced this week for his 34-felony count conviction but after the immunity ruling from the Supreme Court triggered a new wave of delays, that sentencing was pushed back to September.
And as anticipated, Trump’s legal team filed their motion to dismiss the conviction, saying it was “wrong, very wrong” of prosecutors to cite Trump’s “official acts” as evidence against him.
CIVIL
Judge Arthur Engoron, the judge who oversaw Trump’s civil fraud trial, has signed off on a request to subpoena a Manhattan real estate attorney over his comments about an ex parte conversation about the case. Meanwhile, Trump still owes the state of New York $454 million as he appeals the legal defeat.
Judge Arthur Engoron presides over former President Donald Trump’s civil business fraud trial at New York Supreme Court, Wednesday, Oct. 25, 2023, in New York. (Spencer Platt/Pool Photo via AP), (right) attorney Andrew Leitman Bailey in an NBC New York interview (WNBC/screengrab, as it appeared in court documents)
FLORIDA
CRIMINAL
As widely expected, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon vacated a number of important deadlines in the espionage case after the Supreme Court issued its immunity ruling. Deadlines for Trump’s team to turn over materials for discovery are now gone but the judge did give the special counsel’s office the opportunity to keep filing at will, “should it so elect,” she wrote.
Main image: Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, on April 4, 2024 (Photo by Kyle Mazza/NurPhoto via AP). Inset: Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference with Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., Friday, April 12, 2024, at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee).
GEORGIA
CRIMINAL
Nothing new to report this week since the case has been waylaid until 2025 and the docket has otherwise remained quiet.
OF NOTE: Trump’s co-defendant in the waylaid racketeering case, Rudy Giuliani, abruptly agreed to dismiss his bankruptcy case this week while he remains on the hook to the former Georgia election workers he defamed Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss. The women had urged a judge this week to toss it, saying he “conveniently” timed a motion to convert his Chapter 11 case to a Chapter 7 so he could avoid compulsory discovery that may enlighten his creditors. His creditors told a judge this week they have had just about enough of his “chicanery.”
Rudy Giuliani (Photo via Rey Del Rio at Getty Images)
WASHINGTON, D.C.
SUPREME COURT
Trump’s former fixer Michael Cohen asked the high court this week for permission to sue Trump for what he argues was a retaliatory arrest for his tell-all book.
Just days after Justice Clarence Thomas threw a wrench into Mar-a-Lago classified documents case, a special counsel has been demanded by Senate Democrats to investigate possible criminal violations by the justice including receiving gifts from billionaire Republican donor Harlan Crow.
CRIMINAL
The options now remaining in the Jan. 6 election subversion case are few: U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan can kick off a series of hearings that will sort out what remains of the charges since the high court took a hacksaw to it or Smith can start narrowing the original indictment of four counts and resubmit it to a grand jury.
Even if a criminal trial fails to launch before the end of 2025 — and that seems exceedingly likely — evidentiary hearings hosted by Chutkan could become a major thorn in Trump’s side as he campaigns for the White House. For now, however, the docket is quiet.
OF NOTE: In the nation’s capital this week, lawyers trying to save Giuliani from disbarment argued the Trump confidant simply didn’t have enough time to vet the former president’s 2020 election challenge in Pennsylvania and that he was “pressed into service” for Trump. And if the decision in Fischer v. United States wasn’t enough of a headache for Justice Department prosecutors, they need only wait for the next possible problem to arise: a writ of certiorari was filed to the high court this week by a Jan. 6 rioter who wants the justices to reconsider the meaning of a very commonly applied statute in Capitol attack prosecutions involving parading, picketing and demonstrating.
L-R: Harlan Crow, (AP Photo/LM Otero, File), Justice Clarence Thomas (Photo by Erin Schaff/Pool/Getty Images), Leonard Leo and Justice Neil Gorsuch embrace at a 2017 Federalist Society convention (AP Photo/Sait Serkan Gurbuz)
Have a tip we should know? [email protected]
