Judge Chutkan ready to ‘reveal’ Donald Trump’s conduct, prosecutor says

U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan could soon hold a “mini-trial” to present evidence in former President Donald Trump’s federal election subversion case that “will expose his conduct,” legal analyst and attorney Dave Aronberg said Saturday.

Aronberg told MSNBC hosts The weekend On Saturday morning, Chutkan, who is overseeing Trump’s federal election subversion case, “is going to hold a mini-trial and will be able to simply present evidence and show the world Donald Trump’s activities before, during and after January 6th.”

In an email addressed to Newsweek Saturday afternoon, Aronberg, the state attorney for Palm Beach County, Florida, defined a “mini-trial” as “the investigative hearings that the Supreme Court ordered Judge Chutkan to undertake to determine whether Trump acted in an official or unofficial capacity in his attempts to overturn the 2020 election.”

He also stressed that the hearings would be public and could “potentially reveal new evidence that has not been previously disclosed.”

Newsweek filed a request for information form on the U.S. District Court in Columbia’s website Saturday afternoon.

On January 6, 2021, thousands of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to stop Congress of certification Joe BidenDonald Trump’s 2020 election victory was followed by a riot that broke out after Trump claimed the election had been stolen from him through widespread voter fraud, despite no evidence to support his claim. The insurrection left one protester dead and dozens of police officers injured.

In August 2023, Trump was indicted on four counts for allegedly working to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Department of Justice (DOJ) Special Counsel Jack Smith is leading the prosecution, charging Trump with conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction and attempted obstruction of an official proceeding, and conspiracy against the rights of the United States.

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee has pleaded not guilty to all charges and said the case was politically motivated. The case has been frozen for nearly six months while the U.S. Supreme Court considers Trump’s case for presidential immunity.

On July 1, the court ruled 6-3 that presidents enjoy three categories of immunity: absolute immunity for essential presidential functions; official presidential acts that enjoy presumptive immunity; and no immunity for a president’s unofficial acts.

When the case returns to the Chutkan court, it will begin to decide which parts of the indictment fall into which of the three categories.

Aronberg said Newsweek that these public hearings “would require Judge Chutkan to determine whether Jack Smith could overcome the presumption of immunity that Trump now enjoys for actions that the Supreme Court has characterized as official, but which do not fall within the core constitutional powers of a president.”

On Saturday morning, the lawyer said The weekend The co-host said he was unsure of the exact date of Chutkan’s “mini-trial,” but noted that “she said she would be willing to cancel her European vacation to make it go smoothly, so I think it will be before the election.”

Aronberg added that the “mini-trial will expose his (Trump’s) conduct, even though there will be no trial before the election.”

Trump’s case faces a tight timetable because of the upcoming November election. If he wins, Justice Department policy prohibits prosecuting sitting presidents. That means prosecutors will have to wait until Trump leaves office to pursue the case.

Newsweek I reached out to Trump’s spokesperson via email Saturday afternoon for comment.

Next week, Trump is expected to formally accept the Republican Party’s presidential nomination at the Republican National Convention. For now, he is expected to face President Joe Biden in the 2024 presidential election.

Trump still faces three other criminal charges from his final presidential campaign. He has pleaded not guilty to all of them, and in late May a jury convicted him on 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal payments in 2016 to silence adult film star Stormy Daniels during his 2016 presidential campaign. Daniels claims she had an affair with Trump in 2006, which he has denied. The former president’s legal team has vowed to appeal the case.

On July 10, Trump’s lawyers argued in a court filing that the former president’s conviction should be overturned based on the court’s ruling on presidential immunity.

“Rather than await guidance from the Supreme Court, prosecutors arrogantly mocked President Trump’s immunity motions and insisted on rushing to trial,” Trump’s lawyers Todd Blanche and Emil Bove wrote in the court filing, urging Presiding Judge Juan Merchan to heed the immunity ruling.

Trump’s sentencing date has been pushed back two months, to September 18, as Merchan examines whether the court’s immunity ruling affects the hush-money case.