Judge Chutkan Gives Donald Trump New Deadline in Jack Smith Case

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan agreed Thursday to allow former President Donald Trump to file his response to the Justice Department's special counsel Jack Smith's immunity filing until after the presidential election, a filing shows.

Trump's lawyers had asked for until November 21 to submit their retort to the filings submitted by federal prosecutors, but Chutkan set the deadline for November 7—two days after the election, which is still an extension from the original October 17 deadline.

On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan partly unsealed Smith's lengthy filing aimed at convincing Chutkan, who is presiding over Trump's federal election subversion case, that the former president's alleged offenses are private, rather than official acts of office, and can therefore remain in his indictment.

Newsweek reached out to Steven Cheung, Trump's communications director, via email for comment on Thursday evening. The Justice Department declined to comment.

Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, faces four felony counts in the Justice Department's case against him in Washington, D.C., after he allegedly tried to overturn President Joe Biden's 2020 election victory in the aftermath of his loss, which culminated in the U.S. Capitol riot on January 6, 2021.

On that day, Trump supporters stormed the Capitol building in a failed attempt to stop Congress from certifying Biden's election win. The riot erupted following repeated claims from Trump that the election was stolen via widespread voter fraud, despite there being no substantial evidence of this occurring.

Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges and claimed the case is politically motivated against him.

In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's July 1 decision that former presidents have immunity for official acts conducted while in office but not for unofficial acts, Smith updated Trump's original indictment, and a grand jury reindicted the former president last month.

The superseding indictment removes some specific allegations against Trump, but the former president is still charged with the same four counts from the original indictment filed in August 2023: conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction and attempting to obstruct an official proceeding; and conspiracy against rights.

"Although the defendant was the incumbent President during the charged conspiracies, his scheme was fundamentally a private one," Smith's 165-page brief read. "When the defendant lost the 2020 presidential election, he resorted to crimes to try to stay in office."

Trump's legal team argued that it should be allowed to submit a 180-page response to Smith's filings as the former president must have an "equal opportunity to submit and address facts bearing on immunity, and to rebut the Special Counsel's misleading submissions," which Chutkan did allow.

The deadline extension request noted that the courts have previously granted Smith's office extensions to deadlines to file their responses and legal briefs in the case.

Trump's lawyers also submitted a request for Smith's team to file a reply to their proposed November 21 filing by December 5.

Since Chutkan agreed to a sooner deadline for Trump's response to Smith's filing, the special counsel's team is given until November 21 to file a reply and Trump's team is given until December 5 to reply to Smith's response.

Meanwhile, Trump called Smith's immunity filing "falsehood-ridden" in a post on his social media site, Truth Social, on Wednesday and seemed to allege that the release coincided with Tuesday night's vice presidential debate between his running mate, Ohio Senator JD Vance, and Democratic Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota.

"The release of this falsehood-ridden, Unconstitutional, J6 brief immediately following Tim Walz's disastrous Debate performance, and 33 days before the Most Important Election in the History of our Country, is another obvious attempt by the Harris-Biden regime to undermine and Weaponize American Democracy, and INTERFERE IN THE 2024 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION," Trump posted.

Update 10/3/24, 5:55 p.m. ET: This article has been updated with additional information.

Update 10/4/24, 6:50 p.m. ET: This article has been updated with additional information.