Judge sets Trump 2020 election subversion case pretrial meeting for Aug 16

(Reuters) – U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan scheduled a pre-trial meeting on August 16 in the U.S. criminal case accusing Donald Trump of illegally trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat, a court document showed on Saturday.

Chutkan’s order comes a day after she regained jurisdiction in the case which had been on pause for nearly eight months to allow for Trump to get his presidential immunity claim adjudicated.

She is expected to decide in the coming weeks which aspects of the indictment obtained by Special Counsel Jack Smith must be tossed out after the Supreme Court ruled that former presidents are entitled to broad immunity for official actions taken as president.

Trump has pleaded not guilty to four criminal counts accusing him of a multi-part conspiracy to subvert his 2020 election loss.

In a court document on Saturday, Chutkan said Trump will not be required to appear in court for the status conference on Aug. 16. All parties were asked to propose a schedule for pretrial proceedings by Aug. 9.

Trump’s lawyer was not immediately available for comment.

Chutkan also denied Trump’s motion filed in October to dismiss the charges against him on statutory grounds.

Trump may file a renewed motion after all issues of immunity have been resolved, she said.

The Supreme Court’s decision to take up the immunity claim case, which it heard on its last day of arguments in April and ruled on July 1, made it all but impossible for the criminal case to go to trial before the Nov. 5 U.S. presidential election.

Chutkan has previously promised to give Trump about 90 days to prepare for trial once the case returns to her courtroom, with a trial expected to last six to eight weeks.

Trump, the first former U.S. president to be criminally prosecuted, is the Republican nominee in the Nov. 5 U.S. presidential election. U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday secured the delegate votes needed to clinch the Democratic nomination.