UPDATE (Oct. 2, 2024, 4:03 p.m. ET): U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan on Wednesday unsealed special counsel Jack Smith’s redacted 165-page immunity brief in Donald Trump’s federal election interference case.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan sided with special counsel Jack Smith on Tuesday when she said he can file a longer-than-usual brief in the forthcoming immunity litigation. But in addition to granting the government’s arguably administrative request, the judge also rejected a handful of complaints that Donald Trump’s lawyers raised in connection with the motion.  

In granting Smith’s plea for more pages — he said his opening immunity brief could be 180 pages — Chutkan observed in her written opinion that the former president’s opposition to Smith’s request comprised “a single statement that the Government’s request ‘would quadruple the standard page limits in this District.’” The rest of Trump’s nine-page opposition, she wrote, “rehashes Defendant’s position that immunity briefing should not begin until he files a motion to dismiss several months from now.”

Chutkan reiterated her rejection of Trump’s position in her opinion. She noted that having prosecutors file their opening brief — which, thanks to her ruling, can now be longer than the typical 45 pages — reflects the case’s “unusual procedural posture, where the [trial] court has been directed [by the Supreme Court] to accept party submissions on and make specific determinations about the nature of the allegations.” Another way to read her explanation is the judge saying: It’s not my fault the Supreme Court issued this crazy immunity ruling; I’m just trying to figure out the best way to move forward. 

The Obama appointee likewise brushed aside Trump’s claims that Smith’s forthcoming brief arguing against immunity would represent something incredibly unusual or even untoward — “it is simply how litigation works,” she wrote — or that the impending election is a relevant consideration. On the latter point, Chutkan wrote that the Republican presidential nominee’s “concern with the political consequences of these proceedings does not bear on the pretrial schedule.”

The judge elsewhere in her opinion blasted the “incoherence” of Trump’s litigation position and chided the unsupported nature of the defense’s stance. (The former president has pleaded not guilty in the federal case alleging he tried to criminally subvert the 2020 election he lost to Joe Biden.)

So even though this motion about brief length isn’t the most consequential one in the federal election interference case, Chutkan’s opinion represents the latest assertion of her authority over the matter. At the same time, it represents a reminder that her control is subject both to higher judicial review and to vanishing entirely. The Supreme Court will still have the last word over however she resolves the substance of the immunity issue — that resolution won’t come before the election, and she’ll likely lose control over the case forever if Trump wins that election and gets it dismissed.   

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