WASHINGTON — The presiding judge Election fraud proceedings against former President Donald Trump rejected the defense's attempt on Saturday to dismiss the fees on the grounds that vindictive and political goals were being pursued against him.
The ruling by US District Judge Tanya Chutkan is the primary substantive order for the reason that case was returned to them on Friday the next a landmark Supreme Court ruling last month The law gave former presidents broad immunity and limited special counsel Jack Smith's prosecution of Trump.
In their motion to dismiss the fees, defense attorneys argued that Trump was mistreated because he was prosecuted while others who challenged election results escaped criminal charges. Trump, the Republican nominee for the 2024 presidential election, also suggested that President Joe Biden and the Justice Department had initiated criminal proceedings against him to stop his re-election.
But Chutkan rejected each arguments, saying Trump was not only being charged with difficult the election results, but quite with “knowingly making false statements in furtherance of criminal conspiracies and obstructing election certification proceedings.” She also said his lawyers had misread media articles they’d relied on in arguing that the fees were political in nature.
“After reviewing the defendant's evidence and arguments, the court cannot conclude that he has met his burden to prove actual vindictiveness or a presumption thereof and therefore sees no basis for dismissing the case on these grounds,” Chutkan wrote in her order.
She also scheduled a standing conference for Saturday, August 16, to debate next steps within the case.
The indictment, filed in August 2023, incorporates 4 charges against Trump, accusing him of conspiring to overturn the outcomes of the 2020 election, which he lost to Biden, using various methods to achieve this, including pressuring his Vice President Mike Pence to dam the formal certification of the electoral votes.
Trump's lawyers argued that as a former president he was immune from prosecution, and the case has been on hold since December while Trump's appeal is heard in court.
The Supreme Court ruled in a 6-3 decision that presidents enjoy absolute immunity for his or her core constitutional duties and are presumptively immune from prosecution for all other official acts. The justices sent the case back to Chutkan to determine which acts alleged within the indictment can remain subject to prosecution and which should be thrown out.
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