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On Sunday, Donald Trump asked U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan to push back his filing deadlines for reply briefs due Monday and Thursday in his election interference case in Washington. He wants to push his Monday deadlines back a couple of days to Wednesday, and his Thursday deadlines back a week — that is, to Thanksgiving.
In support of his argument, Trump’s lawyers note they have litigation coming up in the federal appeals court regarding Chutkan’s gag order, which they’re challenging; Trump has a brief due Friday ahead of oral argument next Monday. Against that backdrop, they write that Trump “seeks the requested extensions so that he may better balance these conflicting obligations, while also continuing his trial preparation work, which cannot stop given the enormity of discovery and the potential March 4, 2024, trial date.”
“Potential” trial date?
It’s true that dates can always change, though U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon just acknowledged the March date when she pushed deadlines in the former president’s classified documents case. The Trump appointee wrote Friday that “the schedules as they currently stand overlap substantially with the deadlines in this case, presenting additional challenges to ensuring Defendant Trump has adequate time to prepare for trial and to assist in his defense.” Of course, the leading GOP presidential candidate wants to play his cases against one another in an attempt to delay them, in the hopes he can retake the White House and thereupon make the federal ones vanish.
To be sure, while slight delays can add up, Chutkan granting Trump’s latest request wouldn’t alone thwart his March trial date, which is set to be the first of his four criminal cases.
But it underscores what’s perhaps the main thing that could tie up the Washington case, which is pretrial appeals. That’s why special counsel Jack Smith recently implored Chutkan to prioritize ruling on Trump’s immunity and double jeopardy claims, because those are issues that can be challenged ahead of trial. So, what’s more important than these filing deadlines is when Chutkan rules on issues that can be appealed. Trial judges can’t control appellate courts, so the best way to keep the March date is getting that potential appellate process started as soon as possible.
Trial judges can’t control appellate courts, so the best way to keep the March date is getting that potential appellate process started as soon as possible.
Smith’s team is very much aware of that point. In a filing Monday, the government attorneys opposed Trump seeking “yet another extension,” writing that this “latest extension motion risks preventing the completion of briefing on the defendant’s constitutional and statutory claims, including his double jeopardy claim ... which the Government has explained ... should be decided promptly and in conjunction with the defendant’s presidential immunity claim.”
And regarding the gag order, the special counsel’s team notes that Trump “is represented in his appeal by three additional counsel apparently retained just for that purpose,” so there’s “no reason that his separate counsel of record here cannot meet this Court’s deadlines while his appellate attorneys prepare for oral argument.”
Since part of Trump’s extension request involves Monday, we could get word soon from Chutkan.
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