The conventional wisdom once the Supreme Court issued its ruling on presidential immunity on July 1 was that once D.C. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan had the case back in hand, she would move the case along as quickly as possible, though it appeared highly unlikely the case would be brought to trial prior to the November election.
On August 2, the case was formally remanded to the District Court, and the following day, Chutkan issued two orders: one ordering the parties to file a status report by August 9, setting the case for a status conference on August 16, and denying Trump’s motion to dismiss on statutory grounds and one denying Trump’s motion to dismiss for selective and vindictive prosecution (with an accompanying memorandum opinion). As noted at the time, it appeared Judge Chutkan wouldn’t be allowing any dust to settle on the case.
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That still may be true, but she’s also not rushing the case. On Thursday, the parties filed a joint status report, which included an unopposed request from the prosecution for an extension in which to provide the court with a proposed schedule for pretrial proceedings, noting that it was still assessing how best to proceed in light of the Supreme Court’s decision.
On Friday, Chutkan issued a brief order granting the Government’s request and setting August 30 as the deadline for the (more detailed) joint status report and September 5 for the status conference. No doubt, there will be multiple pleadings filed and hearings taking place in the interim, but with that, I can confidently say the case is not going to trial before November 5. The math just doesn’t work.
