U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan isn’t holding special counsel Jack Smith in contempt. There was no good reason think she would, based on the motion Donald Trump’s legal team filed earlier this month suggesting she take that drastic action. The former president’s lawyers lodged their long-shot complaint after Smith’s team filed a pretrial motion and provided the defense with discovery while the case has been paused for Trump’s immunity appeal.
Under Chutkan’s prior order, the pretrial appeal pauses “any further proceedings that would move this case towards trial or impose additional burdens of litigation on Defendant.” But as the judge explained Thursday, her order “did not clearly and unambiguously prohibit the Government actions to which Defendant objects.”
Still, Chutkan clarified going forward that the parties have to first ask for court permission to file further substantive pretrial motions. Even then, the judge emphasized that the measure doesn’t mean that the prosecution violated any of her order’s “clear and unambiguous terms or acted in bad faith.”
So while Chutkan has sorted out this sideshow, it’s an open question when the case itself will actually go to trial. It’s unlikely to move forward on March 4, though. We’re awaiting a ruling on Trump’s claim of immunity from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit panel that heard arguments on Jan. 9. However the panel rules, further appeal is likely. How far the start date gets pushed back depends in part on how long it takes the appellate courts to decide that immunity claim, which, like Trump’s now-failed contempt gambit, is a long-shot at best. Subscribe to the Deadline: Legal Newsletter for weekly updates on the top legal stories, including news from the Supreme Court, the Donald Trump cases and more.
Jordan Rubin is the Deadline: Legal Blog writer. He was a prosecutor for the New York County District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and is the author of “Bizarro," a book about the secret war on synthetic drugs. Before he joined MS NOW, he was a legal reporter for Bloomberg Law.
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