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Former US President Donald Trump is being tried in Washington, Florida, Georgia and New York.
© Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post
Trump's trial in Washington is on hold while the Supreme Court considers his immunity claim.
The impact could be enormous.
Washington - The US Supreme Court has accepted the appeal of former US President Donald Trump on the question of the ex-president's immunity from prosecution.
This will now examine whether Trump is immune from criminal prosecution for attempting to overturn the result of the 2020 US election.
The historic hearing was scheduled for the week of April 22nd.
This will further delay the Trump trial in Washington, DC during the 2024 presidential election year.
Here's what happens next in the case and how it could affect his three other pending criminal cases in Florida, Georgia and New York.
Here is an overview of the most important questions and answers:
Donald Trump's immunity: what did the Supreme Court decide?
The Supreme Court has given the former president's lawyers and special counsel Jack Smith's prosecutors an accelerated schedule to file written arguments over the next seven weeks on the question: "Whether and, if so, to what extent, a former president enjoys immunity from criminal prosecution." Prosecution for conduct allegedly related to official acts during his term of office.”
In accepting Trump's case, the Supreme Court also ordered that Trump's trial - originally scheduled to begin March 4 in Washington - be put on hold pending its final decision.
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What does the decision mean?
The bottom line: Trump, who is running for president again in the 2022 US election, will likely not face trial until the summer at the earliest, if at all.
If the Supreme Court rejects Trump's appeal in May or June and approves the prosecution, the trial could be rescheduled in about two months, before the 2024 election, in which Trump is considered the Republican front-runner.
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Does the court's acceptance of Trump's appeal indicate how it will rule?
Not necessarily.
It takes the votes of just four of the nine justices to accept an appeal.
In further postponing the underlying criminal case against Trump, the court made clear that it was not commenting on the merits of Trump's lawsuit and did not announce a vote on Trump's original motion to stay (which would have required five votes) but rather declared it moot .
A lower court had already ordered that if the Supreme Court takes up the appeal, the case will remain frozen until a final decision is made.
Is there a deadline within which the court would have to issue a decision?
As a rule, all judgments are announced by the last day of the court's session in late June or early July, before the summer break.
What is this case about?
Special prosecutor Jack Smith has accused Trump of leading a criminal conspiracy to thwart the peaceful transfer of political power.
He claims that the then-president was so determined to remain in the White House that he spread a barrage of lies claiming the election was stolen, culminating in the violent attack on Congress.
The 45-page, four-count indictment alleges that Trump attempted to knowingly make false claims of massive fraud in order to persuade state officials to change the election results;
he had threatened those responsible at the Justice Department to initiate sham investigations into alleged election violations;
He tried to submit fake voter lists from key swing states to obstruct Congress' certification process, and he pressured Vice President Mike Pence to use his ceremonial role overseeing the process to overturn the results.
Trump is said to have done so despite being repeatedly told his claims were untrue, including by his attorney general, the country's top intelligence officials, White House lawyers and campaign aides.
The special prosecutor believes the conspiracy targeted and destabilized a fundamental function of government - collecting, counting and certifying the results of the presidential election - and attempted to exploit the violence at the Capitol to persuade lawmakers to change their positions .
Trump has denied any wrongdoing and has accused President Joe Biden and the Justice Department of seeking to interfere in the 2024 election by targeting him, the front-runner.
What does this mean for Trump's other trials and trial dates?
The decision is expected to have no impact on Trump's criminal trial in New York state, which is scheduled to begin in less than four weeks.
The former president has asserted a similar immunity defense in his separate federal criminal case in Florida and in his separate state case in Georgia;
it is not yet clear how the Supreme Court's decision might affect these cases.
Trump is due in a Manhattan court on March 25 to answer 34 counts of falsifying business records in connection with a $130,000 hush-money payment to porn actress Stormy Daniels in 2016, on the eve of the presidential election.
New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan confirmed the appointment two weeks ago after consultation with U.S. District Court Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, who is overseeing Trump's trial in Washington DC.
Trump's trial in New York is expected to last six weeks and could conclude in late spring.
Trump is also scheduled to go on trial in Florida at the end of May, where he is accused of illegally storing classified information and obstructing government attempts to retrieve it.
However, U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon in Fort Pierce, Florida, has indicated she may delay the trial to give lawyers more time to review top-secret evidence.
She has scheduled a hearing for Friday.
No trial date has yet been set for Trump's fourth criminal case - the charge in Fulton County, Ga., that he conspired with more than a dozen other people to overturn the 2020 election results.
This case is currently stalled by defense allegations that a romantic relationship between Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D) and her lead prosecutor tainted the case, which Willis denies.
Is there a deadline by which Trump must be brought to trial in Washington?
No, but Smith has pushed for the trial to be held quickly in the national interest, and Trump's critics have argued that voters should have the benefit of knowing the justices' verdict on Trump before Election Day.
If elected president in November, Trump is expected to end prosecutions and has argued that voters should serve as his final jury.
To the author
Spencer S. Hsu
is an investigative reporter, two-time Pulitzer finalist and national Emmy Award nominee.
Hsu has reported on homeland security, immigration, Virginia politics and Congress.
We are currently testing machine translations. This article was automatically translated from English into German.
This article was first published in English on February 29, 2024 at the “Washingtonpost.com” - as part of a cooperation, it is now also available in translation to readers of the IPPEN.MEDIA portals.