'Room for maneuver': Former federal prosecutor details Jack Smith's narrow path

Following the decision of the United States Supreme Court, rendered by a vote of six to one, Trump vs. USAMany legal experts have pondered the question: Where do the four indictments against former President Donald Trump go from here?

The six Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices have ruled that a president enjoys absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for “official” acts committed in office, but not for “unofficial acts.” Justice Sonia Sotomayor was scathing in her dissenting opinion, saying the Supreme Court has given presidents a green light to commit criminal acts and get away with it.

Trump vs. USA It was the former president’s challenge to special counsel Jack Smith’s election interference case, which former federal prosecutor Ankush Khardori said still has a narrow path to travel — perhaps even before the 2024 presidential election in November.

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In a July 2 Politico article, Khardori notes that “the immediate effect of the ruling will be to exponentially reduce the chances of a trial before November.”

“The decision still leaves some breathing room for Justice Department prosecutors and District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is presiding over the case, to move forward before November,” the former federal prosecutor argues. “Prosecutors and the judge should do everything in their power to do so — despite the obvious desire of Republican appointees to make it as difficult as possible. The decision is undeniably a major victory for Trump, and has already infuriated many in the legal world, though the direction it’s going is not surprising.”

Khardori goes on to argue that while the high court has put Smith and his colleagues at the US Department of Justice (DOJ) “in a terribly difficult position,” they “should move the case forward as aggressively as possible, even if that means it cannot be fully resolved before Election Day.” And he stresses that Chutkan has his work cut out for him.

“One solution would be for Chutkan to seek information as soon as possible about where the parties stand on the status of the indictment following the court’s decision,” Khardori says. “Trump will continue to argue that this should all be dismissed or put on hold for one reason or another, but Smith and his team can make their best case for moving forward with the prosecution after the Supreme Court’s decision.”

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The former Justice Department prosecutor continued: “If for any reason there are evidentiary issues that need to be resolved, those hearings should occur as expeditiously as possible, and the government should present as much evidence as reasonably possible, including evidence about Trump’s conduct that remains at issue in the prosecution’s case, and including evidence that has not yet been made public.”

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Ankush Khardori’s full article for Politico is available at this link.