The Weekend Wrap: August 11, 2024

Smith seeks more time in D.C.

Welcome to the Weekend Wrap! Here are the week’s white collar highlights:

Trump Prosecutions

D.C. Federal Case - January 6 Allegations

Judge Chutkan had ordered the parties to confer and provide a joint status report by last Friday and had set a status hearing for this coming Friday, the 16th. On Thursday, Jack Smith filed a request for more time — the first time he has done that in the year since the case was indicted. He said he was still conferring with other Justice Department components regarding the impact of the Supreme Court’s immunity decision and that he was not yet prepared to propose a schedule for how to proceed.

Smith asked to have until August 30 to file the status report and for the hearing to be set some time after that. The defense, naturally, did not oppose this request for more delay. Judge Chutkan granted the request on Friday. The report is now due on August 30 and the status conference will be on September 5.

There’s really no need to rush at this point, since the case clearly is not going to be resolved prior to the election. But it’s been more than a month since the Supreme Court’s decision, so it’s a little surprising to me that Smith and the Justice Department haven’t already figured out how they want to proceed.

This is pure speculation, but perhaps Smith wants more time because he is going to seek a superseding indictment adding Trump’s co-conspirators as defendants. I wrote a post last week arguing that it would make sense for him to do that before Labor Day. If you missed that post, you can find it here:

Time to Indict Trump's Co-Conspirators in D.C.

Others have suggested Smith could also be considering adding additional charges, such as a charge of insurrection under 18 USC 2383 based on Trump’s January 6 speech on the Ellipse, or could be figuring out how to approach the obstruction of justice charges in light of the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Fischer narrowing that statute. Those seem less likely reasons to me. I don’t see what would have changed that would cause Smith to want to file insurrection charges against Trump now after making the (I think wise) decision not to pursue that charge a year ago. And as I’ve argued here before, I think the Fischer issues are relatively straightforward and that the fake electors scheme with phony ballots will mean those charges survive.

Occam’s razor suggests that what’s really going on is simply what Smith said: figuring out the impact of the immunity decision is really complicated and the smart people at DOJ need more time to work on it. But it sure would be fun to see that superseding indictment!

New York State Case - Hush Money/False Business Records

Judge Merchan has adjusted the schedule for resolving pretrial matters. Trump has moved to throw out the convictions based on the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity decision. He has also moved - I believe for the third time - for Judge Merchan to recuse himself from the case.