The federal judge overseeing the election subversion case against former President Donald Trump rejected a defense effort to dismiss the indictment on grounds that he was prosecuted for vindictive and political reasons.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan’s ruling on Saturday is the first substantive order since the case was returned to her on Friday following a significant Supreme Court ruling last month that granted broad immunity to former presidents and narrowed special counsel Jack Smith’s case against Trump.
In their motion to dismiss the indictment, Trump’s defense attorneys contended that he was unfairly targeted because he was prosecuted while others who challenged election results avoided criminal charges. Trump, the Republican candidate in the 2024 presidential election, also suggested that President Joe Biden and the Justice Department initiated the prosecution to prevent his reelection.
However, Chutkan dismissed both arguments, stating that Trump was not charged solely for challenging election results but for “knowingly making false statements in furtherance of criminal conspiracies and for obstruction of election certification proceedings.” She also noted that his lawyers had misinterpreted news articles cited as evidence of political motives behind the prosecution.
RELATED STORY | What does the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling mean for Trump’s federal election interference case?
“After reviewing Defendant’s evidence and arguments, the court cannot conclude that he has carried his burden to establish either actual vindictiveness or the presumption of it, and so finds no basis for dismissing this case on those grounds,” Chutkan wrote in her order.
She also scheduled an August 16 status conference to discuss the next steps in the case.
The four-count indictment, filed in August 2023, accuses Trump of conspiring to overturn the 2020 election results he lost to President Joe Biden through various schemes, including pressuring his vice president, Mike Pence, to block the formal certification of electoral votes.
Trump’s lawyers argued that he was immune from prosecution as a former president, and the case has been on hold since December pending his appeal through the courts.
The Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision, determined that presidents have absolute immunity for core constitutional duties and are generally immune from prosecution for all other official actions. The justices remanded the case to Chutkan to determine which acts alleged in the indictment can proceed in the prosecution and which must be discarded.