Jack Smith Makes Urgent Plea to Judge Chutkan

Prosecutors in Donald Trump's election-interference trial have urged the judge overseeing the case to deny his bid to freeze it pending an appeal.

In a federal indictment filed in August, Trump is facing four charges pertaining to his alleged attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election. He has denied all wrongdoing and said he should be immune from prosecution because the case is based on decisions he made while in office. Newsweek has contacted representatives for Trump by email to comment on this story.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing the case, ruled earlier this month that former presidents will have no special conditions on their federal criminal liability. She said that Trump does not have absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for his actions while in the White House.

The Republican is appealing the decision in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. He has said that the entire case should be paused pending the appeal as a ruling in his favour would close the case.

However, in a court filing this weekend, Special Counsel Jack Smith urged Judge Chutkan to reject the motion to delay the trial, which is scheduled to begin on March 4, 2024.

"During the pendency of the appeal, any number of matters could arise in this case that are not involved in the appeal; the Court should not enter an order preventing it from handling them. Furthermore, the Court should maintain the March 4 trial date," senior assistant special counsels Molly Gaston and Thomas Windom wrote.

They said the court could continue working on motions before it while Trump's appeal is pending and added there is a strong public interest in the trial going forward as planned.

"In light of the public's strong interest in a prompt trial, the Government will seek to ensure that the trial proceeds as scheduled. In particular, the Government will continue to meet all of its deadlines in the Court's pretrial schedule," Gaston and Windom added.

They said: "The Court should decline to issue an order that would prevent it from resolving pending motions or handling aspects of this case unrelated to the appeal."

Meanwhile, former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner, a Trump critic and legal analyst, warned in a video of "danger dead ahead" by the former president seeking to proceed with his immunity argument. Kirschner said it was a preview of his "dictatorial" plans.

Including the election-interference case, Trump faces a total of four criminal indictments and 91 felony charges—another involving alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election; one regarding the alleged mishandling of classified documents that he retained when he left the White House; and one regarding hush-money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels. Trump, the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, has denied any wrongdoing in all of his cases.