Here’s How Long the Supreme Court Could Delay Trump’s Jan. 6 Trial

The Supreme Court has said it will hear the case on whether former President Donald Trump can claim presidential immunity to get out of his federal election interference trial.

But that announcement, which came Wednesday, has legal experts concerned about how this could just be a delay tactic by the Supreme Court and its three Trump-appointed justices.

Until the Supreme Court issues its final decision on Trump’s immunity claim, the federal trial over Trump’s efforts to overthrow the 2020 election—overseen by Judge Tanya Chutkan and originally scheduled to begin next week—will remain on hold.

Legal analyst Lisa Rubin explained on MSNBC Thursday just how much the Supreme Court’s decision shifts back the timeline for when Trump could finally be in a courtroom and potentially face justice over his actions around the 2020 election.

“When Donald Trump’s case was paused to allow for further consideration of the immunity issue, there were 88 days left till trial,” Rubin said. “Judge Chutkan has publicly committed herself to giving Donald Trump around seven months to prepare for trial. So we have to assume that she takes that 88 day remainder fairly seriously. She has also said … that this is a trial that will take around three months. So you have to build into the calendar that 88 days plus 90 days to try the case, if you think that this is going to happen before the election.”

“And that’s why folks like me are asking the Supreme Court, why didn’t you write like you’re running out of time?” she continued. “Because time is quickly elapsing here.”

The Supreme Court has said it will hear arguments beginning the week of April 22.

While many legal experts agree that the Supreme Court will likely strike down Trump’s presidential immunity claim, as Rubin explained, they have different opinions on how quickly they think the Supreme Court will actually issue that decision after hearing the case.

Neal Katyal, the former acting U.S. solicitor general, thinks the decision will come pretty quickly, perhaps by early May. But if we consider Rubin’s math, even in the most sped-up version of the timeline, Trump wouldn’t face a decision in the federal election interference trial until early November. The 2024 election is on November 5.

The Supreme Court’s term usually ends at the end of June or early July. If the court waits until then to issue its ruling, the timeline looks even worse.

Former appeals court Judge Michael Luttig predicted that it is “unimaginable” that Trump will be tried in special counsel Jack Smith’s federal election interference trial before the 2024 election.

Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe also warned that the delay we’ve seen thus far “is just the beginning.”

“If [the Supreme Court] really had any interest in expedition, any interest in satisfying the public need to get this trial going and to have a verdict one way or the other before the election, they would have asked a narrower question,” Tribe told MSNBC Wednesday night. “They would have simply asked whether a president charged with criminally seeking to remain in office beyond the end of his term has absolute immunity from prosecution or crimes committed in that vein. That would have been the right question to ask, and it could have only had one answer.”

Of course, the Supreme Court’s scope in hearing the case is much broader—and it won’t even begin considering the many questions of immunity until April.

As a reminder, Trump’s immunity claim is so outlandish that it has been struck down by two courts already. At one point, his lawyers even tried to argue that a president would be immune from criminal prosecution if he ordered the assassination of a political rival, so long as Congress did not vote to impeach him first.

Moments after the end of Hunter Biden’s closed-door deposition, Republicans signaled that the seemingly endless impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden had finally started to wrap up.

By all means, Wednesday did not look like a success for Republicans, who were roundly accused of ignoring evidence supporting the president’s innocence and pushing a double standard by refusing to examine the term-specific financial gains of former President Donald Trump, who “openly pocketed” money from his son-in-law Jared Kushner’s business dealings—including a $2 billion deal with a Saudi crown prince and Trump ally.

But none of that seemed to linger on the minds of the Republicans leading the probe, who hours later could only seem to remember that the hearing had proved extremely damaging for the Biden family—which, frankly, makes sense considering they hardly attended.

In an interview on Fox News’s Hannity, House Oversight Chair James Comer, Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan, and Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith—who have led the charge against the Biden family—refused to acknowledge the startling truth.

“On a scale of one through 10, how damaging was today’s testimony—or deposition—to Hunter Biden?” asked Hannity.

“Well I would say that they’re pretty good at not recalling many things so I’d say an eight,” said Smith.

Oversight Democrats Communications Director Nelly Decker later pointed out that Smith was not present for the deposition.

“I’d say an eight,” Comer replied curtly, failing to admit that he had left the deposition early and didn’t ask a single question of the witness at the very center of their impeachment probe.

“Sean, Sean, I think it was very good for us,” Jordan said. “As I said I think we got a lot of information that we can use if in fact we have a public hearing as Chairman Comer has talked about.”

Republicans are preparing for a public hearing with Hunter Biden—though that was the format that the president’s son has demanded since at least December, when he risked a contempt of Congress charge by refusing the first closed-door invitation. Now we can see why.

The far-right House Freedom Caucus couldn’t hide its glee after Mitch McConnell announced that he’ll step down as Senate minority leader by the end of the year.

The 82-year-old Kentucky Republican said Wednesday he’ll resign from his leadership position by November, and the Freedom Caucus responded by calling him a RINO.

“Our thoughts are with our Democrat colleagues in the Senate on the retirement of their Co-Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (D-Ukraine),” the caucus wrote in a statement on X, formerly Twitter, clearly labeling McConnell a Democrat.

“No need to wait till November,” the statement continued. “Senate Republicans should IMMEDIATELY elect a *Republican* Minority Leader.”

Perhaps this statement shouldn’t be a huge surprise from the far-right caucus, which has bullied House Republicans into adopting more extreme stances at every turn. Most of the members who blocked former Representative Kevin McCarthy’s first bid for the speakership in January 2023 were members of the Freedom Caucus. And seven of the so-called “Gaetz Eight” representatives who successfully kicked out McCarthy just nine months later were also members of the caucus.

More recently, the group has pressured House Speaker Mike Johnson to resist voting on the border deal and on Ukraine aid, in line with the wishes of former President Donald Trump. McConnell, meanwhile, had tried to rally Senate Republicans in support of the legislation.

All this to say: It makes sense that the Freedom Caucus is excited by McConnell’s departure. But calling McConnell—the man who blocked campaign finance reform and helped Donald Trump appoint conservative judges and reshape the courts for decades to come—a RINO is truly next level.

McConnell’s decision to step down, and the Freedom Caucus’s immediate response, is a sign of where the Republican Party is headed. And it’s not looking good.

“Believe me, I know the politics within my party at this particular moment in time,” McConnell said during his resignation speech Wednesday. “I have many faults. Misunderstanding politics is not one of them.”

Donald Trump could be about to get kicked off another state’s 2024 ballot.

An Illinois judge ruled Wednesday that Trump’s name should be removed from the ballot because he engaged in insurrection on January 6, 2021. Illinois is now the third state to try to punish Trump for trying to overthrow the 2020 election, following similar decisions in Colorado and Maine.

“Based on engaging in insurrection on January 6, 2021 ... his name should be removed from the ballot,” Cook County Circuit Judge Tracie Porter wrote in her ruling.

For now, Trump hasn’t actually been removed from Illinois’s ballot. Porter put her ruling on hold until Friday, knowing that Trump’s legal team would likely try to appeal the decision to the Illinois appellate or the Supreme Court. That means Trump will appear on the ballot at least until then.

Porter also said her ruling would remain on hold if the Supreme Court hands down a ruling “inconsistent” with hers in the Colorado case it is currently hearing.

Another important note: Early voting in Illinois’s March 19 primary has already started. And Trump is still on that primary ballot. So for now, no real changes have occurred at the ballot box, and voters can cast their vote for Trump.

Trump, of course, has promised to appeal this decision as soon as possible.

“Today, an activist Democrat judge in Illinois summarily overruled the state’s Board of Elections and contradicted earlier decisions from dozens of other state and federal jurisdictions,” Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement Wednesday.

With the decision in Illinois, that makes three states that have ruled that Trump violated the Fourteenth Amendment when he tried to overthrow our democracy. We’ll see if other states choose to follow that path and whether the rest of America agrees in November.

The Supreme Court—with its three Trump-appointed justices—agreed Wednesday to weigh in on whether former President Donald Trump can claim presidential immunity to get out of his federal election interference trial.

The court announced in a brief order that it would hear arguments and issue a ruling on Trump’s presidential immunity claim. Until the Supreme Court does so, the January 6 trial is completely on hold, according to the order.

The high court agreed to expedite the case and hear arguments the week of April 22, more than a month after the Super Tuesday primaries. It’s not clear why the case is beginning in April. It could take months before we get an actual ruling—potentially by June at the earliest.

If the Supreme Court decides quickly to reject Trump’s bold immunity claim, it may permit a final trial on the 2020 election interference to occur later this summer or fall. But there’s no guarantee a final decision will actually come before November.

Former appeals court Judge Michael Luttig predicted that it is now probably “unimaginable” that Trump will be tried in special counsel Jack Smith’s federal election interference trial before the 2024 election.

Trump views the Supreme Court’s order on Wednesday as a win “for now,” one source told CNN.

Many legal experts do expect the Supreme Court to rule against Trump’s immunity claim, but Trump’s entire strategy in his legal cases thus far has been to delay, delay, delay. And the Supreme Court’s order Wednesday helps him do just that. The Supreme Court could have decided to weigh in on this case sooner, but by the time the federal election interference trial returns to Judge Tanya Chutkan’s court, Trump’s legal team could try a new excuse to get out of the whole thing: that it’s too close to an election to hear this case now.

The federal election interference trial was originally scheduled to begin on March 4, a date that certainly won’t happen now.

Trump has repeatedly tried to claim presidential immunity to get out of his federal election interference case. At one point, his legal team even tried to argue that a president would be immune from criminal prosecution if he ordered Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival, as long as Congress did not vote to impeach him first.

That argument didn’t hold up in a Washington, D.C., appeals court, which ruled earlier this month that Trump did not have “presidential immunity” when he tried to overthrow the 2020 election.

Trump’s first criminal trial, the New York hush-money case, is set to begin on March 25.