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Welcome back, Deadline: Legal Newsletter readers. It was an epic week in legal history, centered on two cases that stem from the same poisonous root: a president who tried to overturn an election loss.
On immunity, former President Donald Trump doesn’t have it in the federal election interference case. The D.C. Circuit panel finally confirmed that on Tuesday in a thorough, unanimous ruling. “For the purpose of this criminal case, former President Trump has become citizen Trump, with all of the defenses of any other criminal defendant,” the judges wrote. The defendant has vowed to appeal, as is his right.
But the clock is ticking while the trial is on hold pending resolution of the immunity claim. The D.C. Circuit gave Trump until Monday to ask the Supreme Court to keep the case paused while he appeals to the justices. It would be shocking for even this Supreme Court to reverse the circuit’s solid ruling. But if the high court doesn’t quickly reject Trump’s gambit, he may be able to delay long enough to retake the White House and quash the case.
Meanwhile, the justices sounded ready to let him run for president again despite the 14th Amendment’s ban on insurrectionists. Oral argument in Trump v. Anderson on Thursday displayed the justices’ discomfort with the idea of disqualifying him. Chief Justice John Roberts, for example, worried aloud that upholding the Colorado decision would prompt reprisals in other states against Democrats. Of course, that’s irrelevant to the question of what the Constitution demands. But all signs from the hearing point to reversal — now, the justices just have to funnel their unease into legal language to make it official.
Another big decision we’re still waiting on is in the $370 million civil fraud case in New York. Judge Arthur Engoron added a wrinkle this week when he asked the parties for any information they have about former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg, one of Trump’s civil co-defendants, potentially pleading guilty to perjury based on his testimony in the fraud case. It’s unclear how, if at all, this will figure in Engoron’s forthcoming ruling. New York Attorney General Letitia James has requested massive financial penalties and real estate industry bars for Trump and his co-defendants. But my colleague Lisa Rubin explores the effect it could have on MAGA lawyer Alina Habba herself for keeping quiet about what she may or may not know on Weisselberg.
On classified documents, special counsel Robert Hur (unceremoniously) cleared President Joe Biden of criminal charges — as expected — while special counsel Jack Smith turned up the heat against Trump. Smith explicitly called out Trump’s delay tactics and pushed Judge Aileen Cannon to reconsider orders that, the government says, would result in disclosing witness information that exposes them to “significant and immediate risks of threats, intimidation, and harassment, as has already happened to witnesses, law enforcement agents, judicial officers, and Department of Justice employees whose identities have been disclosed in cases in which defendant Trump is involved.”
Looking ahead, on top of classified documents hearings Cannon will hold in Florida on Monday and Tuesday, two big hearings are coming up Thursday in Trump’s state criminal cases. In Georgia, Judge Scott McAfee set an evidentiary hearing on the defense attempt to disqualify Fulton County DA Fani Willis; the DA wants McAfee to cancel the hearing altogether after she responded to the allegations in writing, conceding a personal relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade but explaining why it has no legal bearing on the case. A pretrial hearing is also scheduled in the Manhattan hush money case — or, the state election interference case as we might call it. With the early March date in the federal election interference case wiped from the calendar, the New York prosecution could be the first one to go forward later next month.
All in all, it promises to be another pivotal legal week for the quadruply indicted former president.
CORRECTION (Feb. 12, 2024, 9:19 a.m.): An earlier version of this article misstated when two Trump hearings will be held. They are scheduled for Thursday, not Friday.