Welcome to this week’s edition of the Deadline: Legal Newsletter, a roundup of top legal stories, including the latest developments from the Supreme Court, Donald Trump’s legal cases and more. Click here to have the newsletter delivered straight to your inbox every Friday this Supreme Court term.
Donald Trump testified Monday in his civil fraud trial and, despite behaving as you’d expect, he managed not to violate his gag order there for a third time. Beyond that, it wasn’t a legally successful day for the Trump Org. kingpin. Indeed, as my MSNBC colleague Lisa Rubin explained from the Manhattan courtroom, the former president’s chaotic testimony was helpful to New York Attorney General Letitia James’ case.
Ivanka Trump’s testimony helped James, too, in perhaps a more subtle way. Remember, Ivanka isn’t a defendant in the case, but her prior role in the family business allowed the AG’s office to use her testimony to confirm facts and evidence in its $250 million fraud suit. The state rested after Ivanka left the witness box on Wednesday, and next we’ll see what the defense has in store — including more possible testimony from her father and his adult sons to come.
And while Ivanka was on the stand, we got a reminder that the civil fraud case isn’t her father’s only legal worry. It was then that the addled patriarch’s attorneys appealed his Washington gag order in the federal election interference case. The appeal came amid a flurry of filings from special counsel Jack Smith to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, as she prepares to rule on significant pretrial motions. Though the Obama appointee has several important claims to resolve, Smith wants her to prioritize deciding Trump’s immunity and double jeopardy arguments, because they can be appealed ahead of the scheduled March trial, which is set to be the first in his four criminal cases.
The clock is also ticking in Trump’s other federal criminal case, in Florida, where U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon seems much more inclined than Chutkan to entertain his delay desire, in the face of a scheduled May trial there. Cannon’s latest apparent approval of the defendant’s stall tactics led MSNBC legal analyst Andrew Weissmann to conclude that, while he tried giving the Trump appointee the benefit of the doubt, he’s now “absolutely done” with her. Cannon said Friday that she planned to keep the May trial date for now, but left open the possibility of moving it later.
What isn’t done is the 14th Amendment question of Trump’s eligibility for office in 2024. Though he celebrated a Minnesota order Wednesday that rejected voters’ challenge to his primary ballot qualification, it’s too early for Trump’s victory lap. That’s because the state’s high court didn’t address the underlying constitutional issue of whether the amendment’s insurrectionist ban bars him from office, and the court said the challengers can try again in the context of the general election. The takeaway from Minnesota is that we’re no closer to knowing how — and when — the legal system will decide this crucial issue, which is pending in courts across the country and may ultimately be settled by the U.S. Supreme Court in the coming months.
Meanwhile, the justices confronted a deadly mess of their own making — more specifically, the Republican-appointed justices’ own making. That mess is last year’s Bruen decision, which further expanded the Second Amendment and called into question modern laws that judges determine aren’t consistent with the country’s “historical tradition of firearm regulation.” The 6-3 ruling set the stage for Tuesday’s argument in United States v. Rahimi, over the gun rights of people subject to domestic violence orders. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s questions exposed the absurd state of affairs that could even potentially leave this sort of commonsense regulation in doubt. As Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar reminded the court, “all too often, the only difference between a battered woman and a dead woman is the presence of a gun.”
Don’t be surprised if the court declines to further expand gun rights against the backdrop of domestic abuse — and don’t applaud the justices if they render a relatively sensible ruling, either, because their dumb and dangerous ruling in Bruen set the stage for Rahimi.
Speaking of commonsense court-related actions, we were supposed to see subpoenas this week for Harlan Crow and Leonard Leo. But the Democratic-led Senate Judiciary Committee abruptly adjourned the hearing that was set for that purpose on Thursday. I was planning on noting that it’s a welcome surprise to see this progress in the congressional probe, stemming mainly from Justice Clarence Thomas’ various ethical shenanigans, but we’re not even there yet.
