Background: Trump supporters participate in a rally in Washington, Jan. 6, 2021. (AP Photo/John Minchillo). Inset: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign stop at the Tsongas Center in Lowell, Mass., Monday, Jan. 4, 2016. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa).
With the Supreme Court handing down its ruling in Fischer v. United States , there are many convicted Jan. 6 rioters who have something to celebrate this weekend — but whether the same can be said for Donald Trump isn’t so clear.
Undoubtedly, the Fischer ruling is a win for Trump politically speaking: Now he can hit the campaign trail and cite the high court’s opinion that federal prosecutors misapplied their efforts when charging some of his supporters.
But no matter what he says — or how he may or may not distort the legally-complex decision itself — there’s still the problem of his own case for alleged crimes connected to Jan. 6. The high court said Friday that its last opinions for the term will be released on Monday and by all expectations, that means that the question of whether Trump has so-called “total immunity” from his Jan. 6 case is imminent.
But short of receiving that immunity, Trump still faces four charges in Washington, D.C. , two of which are related to obstruction.
One charge alleges he conspired to disrupt the certification of the election, and another accuses of him obstructing the proceeding altogether. Historically, Trump has tried to have these charges dismissed and he has failed each time. In October, as a flurry of briefs appeared on presiding U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan’s docket, special counsel Jack Smith suggested that even with a challenge to the obstruction charges, the counts wouldn’t merely wash away — and ironically, the Supreme Court’s ruling on Fischer may now more robustly support that contention.
The way the justices in Fischer linked prosecution of the statute to documents and records, specifically, matters because this is part of what underlies Trump’s prosecution in Washington, D.C.: Prosecutors argue he acted corruptly and arranged a set of shadow electoral slates, using falsified records in seven states, to certify him as the winner. In his original indictment for the Jan. 6 prosecution, Smith wrote that Trump was “attempting to mimic the procedures that the legitimate electors were supposed to follow under the Constitution and other federal and state laws.”
Law&Crime takes a look at key developments in Trump’s cases in New York , Florida , Georgia , and Washington, D.C.
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NEW YORK
CRIMINAL
Just before Thursday’s debate with President Joe Biden , Trump’s attorneys succeeded in having parts of an existing gag order that stopped him from attacking hush-money trial witnesses lifted . It was undoubtedly a win for Trump , but his attorneys didn’t get everything they asked for.
Background: Former President Donald Trump arrives for a press conference at 40 Wall Street after a pre-trial hearing at Manhattan criminal court, March 25, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura, file). Inset: Stormy Daniels arriving at the 2024 AVN Awards at Resorts World Las Vegas in Las Vegas, Nevada, on January 27, 2024. (Credit: DeeCee Carter/MediaPunch/IPX.) Michael Cohen, former personal attorney to former President Donald Trump, is seen on March 15, 2023 outside Manhattan Criminal Court in New York City. (zz/Siegfried Nacion/STAR MAX/IPx 2023.) Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg speaks during a news conference, Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2023, in New York. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer.)
FLORIDA
CRIMINAL
It was a mixed bag in U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon’s courtroom this week when she found that Trump’s complaints about the warrant used to search Mar-a-Lago didn’t “meaningfully challenge” probable cause. Simultaneously, she ruled that there should be a new evidentiary hearing to freshly examine whether a crime-fraud exception was correctly applied when Trump’s former lawyer Evan Corcoran was ordered to turn over notes particularly useful to prosecutors .
In support of a gag order in the Mar-a-Lago case, special counsel Jack Smith offered Cannon a close look at several vile threats judges and prosecutors have received from Trump’s supporters . Adding to that, he showed her many of the ways Trump has fundraised off lies he’s told about the FBI.
Smith also rebutted at length Trump’s “newly invented” explanations about where he stored highly sensitive documents ; recall, Smith told Cannon, when his staff referred them to as “Beautiful Mind’ boxes, for example.
If the judge needed more receipts , as it were, Smith had them. This week the special counsel called on the court to remember that his appointment is valid now and has been in the recent past: just ask Trump’s former Attorney General Bill Barr .
Receipts may be welcome but more “ friends of the court ” briefs may not be. Cannon signaled she may be done hearing from Trump’s defenders .
On Thursday, a day after Cannon said the evidentiary record was “closed” on the gag order issue, the judge backtracked and decided the parties could file one more 10-page supplemental brief.
Things have been a little tense this week in the courtroom as well. In case you missed it, Cannon dressed down prosecutors over decorum during a series of recent hearings.
Left: M. Evan Corcoran, an attorney for former President Donald Trump, leaves federal court in Washington, Friday, March 24, 2023. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File). Right: Donald Trump awaits the start of a pre-trial hearing with his defense team at Manhattan criminal court, Monday, March 25, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, Pool.)
GEORGIA
CRIMINAL
An opening salvo was made by the former president this week as he appeals the election interference and racketeering case. His attorneys claim Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has “ disqualified herself ” and the indictment must be tossed out completely .
Trump’s co-defendant in the election interference and racketeering case, former Coffee County elections supervisor Misty Hampton , won her bid to pause her trial court proceedings.
The trial remains on hold indefinitely and is unlikely to become unstuck anytime before 2025.
Former 2020 Trump campaign official and current co-defendant Mike Roman was granted another chance to sue Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis for allegedly violating the state’s open records laws .
OF NOTE: Rudy Giuliani , another Trump co-defendant and an accused leader in the fake electors scheme, wants to renew efforts to lift a stay that would allow him to appeal the $148 million defamation judgment he has been ordered to pay election workers he defamed, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss.
Left: Misty Hampton appears in a booking photo (Fulton County Sheriff’s Office); Right: Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis speaks on Aug. 14, 2023, in Atlanta (AP Photo/John Bazemore)
WASHINGTON D.C.
SUPREME COURT
In a highly anticipated decision, the justices ruled 6-3 in Fischer v. United States to narrow a key statute used to charge Jan. 6 defendants for obstructing the official duties of lawmakers certifying the 2020 election. It was a doozy of a ruling , with Justice Amy Coney Barrett offering a sharp critique of the “textual backflips” her colleagues on the bench did to reach the majority conclusion.
Federal prosecutors told the justices this week they must reject Steve Bannon ‘s emergency petition to stay out of prison as he appeals two contempt of Congress convictions for his refusal to comply with a Jan. 6 committee subpoena.
CRIMINAL
It has been more than 140 days since a single filing was made in the federal criminal election subversion case.
CIVIL
Specific to lawsuits filed against Trump by police and lawmakers who say Trump must be held to account for raising a mob that led to their injury, expect things to heat back up later this summer or in September.
OF NOTE: The ripple effects from Jan. 6 have sprawled out all over the country. This week, the Washington State Supreme Court weighed an important question testing the limits of the First Amendment : are a group of police officers from Seattle who attended the “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6 entitled to keep information about their conduct that day — and their names — a secret ?
Background: President Donald Trump speaks during a rally Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington, on the Ellipse near the White House. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)/Inset: A Seattle Police Department patch is seen on an officer’s uniform, July 17, 2016, in Seattle. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File).
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The post The Trump Docket: SCOTUS hands victory to Jan. 6 rioters, but Trump should hold off on celebrating first appeared on Law & Crime .
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