Prosecutors Ask Judge to Deny Trump’s Request to Freeze Election Case

Federal prosecutors on Sunday requested the choose dealing with former President Donald J. Trump’s trial on prices of plotting to overturn the 2020 election to reject his request to freeze the case in its entirety as Mr. Trump appeals her current ruling that he’s not immune from prosecution.

The prosecutors advised the choose, Tanya S. Chutkan, that at the same time as the previous president’s enchantment of the immunity choice moved ahead, she ought to proceed engaged on a number of of the unresolved authorized points within the case and never postpone the trial’s present begin date of March 4.

“Through the pendency of the enchantment, any variety of issues may come up on this case that aren’t concerned within the enchantment,” wrote Molly Gaston, a prime deputy to Jack Smith, the particular counsel who’s overseeing Mr. Trump’s federal prosecutions. “The courtroom shouldn’t enter an order stopping it from dealing with them.”

“For its half,” Ms. Gaston went on, “in gentle of the general public’s robust curiosity in a immediate trial, the federal government will search to make sure that trial proceeds as scheduled.”

The three-page submitting by Ms. Gaston got here simply days after Mr. Trump’s attorneys requested Decide Chutkan to pause the entire dates and deadlines related to the continuing till the enchantment of her choice denying their immunity claims is resolved.

The expansive keep Mr. Trump’s attorneys have requested for would in essence cease the case in its tracks. The enchantment is the centerpiece of a long-planned technique by the previous president’s authorized crew to postpone the trial in Federal District Court docket in Washington till after the 2024 election.

This month, Decide Chutkan turned down Mr. Trump’s sweeping claims that he loved “absolute immunity” from the election interference indictment as a result of it was based mostly on actions he took whereas he was in workplace.

In her ruling, she condemned his makes an attempt to “usurp the reins of presidency” and mentioned there was nothing within the legislation, the Structure or American historical past upholding the concept that a former president shouldn’t be sure by the federal penal code.

Mr. Trump’s attorneys have already moved to problem that call in entrance of a federal appeals courtroom in Washington and plan to maintain interesting all of it the best way to the Supreme Court docket, if wanted. However successful the argument is just one of their objectives. They’re additionally hoping to eat up time and postpone the case from going to trial for so long as they’ll.

If the trial have been to be delay till after the election and Mr. Trump have been to win, he may have his legal professional common merely dismiss the fees. Holding a trial after the presidential race was over would additionally imply that voters would by no means get to listen to any of the proof that prosecutors have collected about Mr. Trump’s expansive efforts to reverse the outcomes of the final election earlier than weighing in on whether or not to elect him once more in 2024.

Mr. Smith’s crew has urged in courtroom papers that it knew Mr. Trump would search to make use of the immunity enchantment to delay the case. Final month, the prosecutors particularly requested Decide Chutkan to make her choice on the query shortly in order that the appellate course of may get underway.

However in her submitting on Sunday night, Ms. Gaston urged there was no cause Decide Chutkan couldn’t make rulings on different excellent points within the case because the enchantment went ahead. Amongst these points is an unresolved movement by Mr. Trump’s attorneys to have the election prices dismissed as a result of they symbolize what they’ve described as a partisan assault in opposition to him by President Biden.

Whereas the protection and the prosecution have been sparring for months over the timing of the election interference trial, they’ve extra not too long ago been preventing over one thing else: quite a lot of “speculative and conspiratorial” theories, as the federal government has known as them, that Mr. Trump has indicated he could increase throughout the trial.

On Saturday evening, in a separate set of courtroom papers, prosecutors pushed again in opposition to these theories, which may function the idea for certainly one of Mr. Trump’s traces of protection at trial: suggesting, that in reassuring the general public that the 2020 election was performed pretty, the so-called deep state was in actual fact deceptive the nation, an assertion that lacks any credible foundation.

Within the papers filed on Saturday, Thomas P. Windom, one other certainly one of Mr. Smith’s prime deputies, dismissed the notion — first introduced up final month by Mr. Trump’s attorneys — that the SolarWinds laptop hack engineered by Russia might need affected the outcomes of the election.

Mr. Windom additionally rejected as “bewildering” Mr. Trump’s declare {that a} assertion issued by the nation’s prime cybersecurity official saying that the 2020 election had been secure was “a part of a partisan effort to offer false assurances to the general public.”

Mr. Windom had little endurance for yet one more conspiratorial declare raised by Mr. Trump: {that a} cabal of politically motivated intelligence and nationwide safety officers had labored collectively after the election to persuade him that no voting machines had been compromised and that the vote depend had in actual fact been correct.

Calling the thought “theatrical,” Mr. Windom mentioned prosecutors by no means discovered a shred of proof throughout their lengthy investigation that “a home or international actor flipped a single vote in a voting machine.”

He additionally revealed how deeply the inquiry delved into the nation’s nationwide safety neighborhood, noting that investigators interviewed the previous director of nationwide intelligence, the previous nationwide safety adviser and his deputy, the previous secretary of protection and the previous management of the Justice Division. Requested in the event that they have been conscious of any proof of meddling within the election outcomes, “the reply from each single official was no,” Mr. Windom’s submitting mentioned.