The trial had disappeared from the calendar of the federal courts in Washington, but official confirmation came this Friday.
Judge Tanya Chutkan has indefinitely postponed the trial of Donald Trump for attempting to alter the results of the 2020 election, which he lost to Joe Biden.
It was scheduled for March 4.
It was the first date on which the former president was going to sit in the dock in a criminal case of the four in which he is accused of a total of 91 crimes.
The process was paralyzed and time was running out.
Trump's lawyers go a little further in their usual strategy of delaying the proceedings.
In this case, they had told the judge that the former president enjoyed immunity for his actions while he was the occupant of the White House.
Judge Chutkan rejected that motion to file the case in a harsh order in which she said that being president “does not confer a lifetime pass to get out of jail.”
Trump's lawyers appealed to the Washington Court of Appeals.
Normally, an appeal does not paralyze the processing of a case, but in this case it did, because what is at stake is the very essence of whether or not the former president can be accused and tried.
Special prosecutor Jack Smith asked the Supreme Court to take action on the matter to buy time, but the justices preferred that the case continue its processing.
At the hearing before the Court of Appeals, which Trump voluntarily attended, his lawyer even defended that, unless Congress itself condemned him, the president should enjoy immunity from court for all types of crimes committed during his term. of his position.
Even if he ordered a special command to assassinate a political rival.
The Court of Appeal judges did not seem very impressed with those arguments, but they have not yet handed down their ruling.
Even if they reject the appeal, Trump could still go to the Supreme Court, which will likely accept the case and will have to set a date for the oral hearing.
All of this delays the process, so the possibility of the trial starting on March 4 was already a chimera.
Chutkan had set the date for the start of the trial on March 4, 2024, the eve of Super Tuesday, the day when most delegates are elected in the primary elections for the presidency.
In the charge sheet for this case, which was Trump's third indictment, the prosecutor accuses him of four crimes: conspiracy to defraud the US Government, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction or attempted obstruction of an official proceeding, and conspiracy. to violate civil rights.
Trump maintains that the elections were stolen from him, but the prosecutor does not accuse him of this great baseless hoax, but rather of his actions to alter the result and prevent the certification of Joe Biden's victory.
Trump is trying to delay his criminal cases while the prosecutor wants to seat him in front of a jury before the November elections.
If Trump is elected while the case is pending, he could order the Justice Department to drop it or try to grant himself a pardon.
The delay in Washington's trial leaves the trail clear for his first indictment, for commercial falsehoods in payments to hide scandals in the 2016 presidential campaign (one of them to porn actress Stormy Daniels, to silence an alleged extramarital affair).
This is initially scheduled before a New York State court, for five weeks starting on March 25, 2024. Chutkan had spoken to the New York judge to warn him that it might need to be postponed if the Washington trial began, but that This is no longer the case.
Trump must return to that New York court on February 15 for a preliminary hearing in which the final details are expected to be finalized.
Everything indicates that the case will begin on time.
Trump's lawyers and prosecutors have been discussing jury selection procedures with the judge and some witnesses have been told to be ready to testify.
Follow all the international information on
and
X
, or in
our weekly newsletter
.