Chutkan in charge: Judge ignites flurry of activity in Trump January 6 case

August 8, 2024

The return of former President Donald Trump’s January 6 prosecution to District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan has ignited a flurry of activity in the once-dormant case—reviving a high-stakes court battle after a series of legal wins for the former president, reports The Hill.

The case is back in Chutkan’s hands after the Supreme Court formally sent it back to the lower courts after providing Trump a victory in determining that, as a former president, he maintains broad immunity from criminal prosecution.

That ended a roughly eight-month pause in the case and Chutkan has made clear the hiatus is over. Just hours after the case was handed back over on Friday, she scheduled an August 16 conference to chart the course for handling numerous unresolved issues in the case—likely teeing off a discussion over whether to hold what some have deemed a minitrial.

And on Saturday, August 3, she ruled against Trump on a pending bid to toss the case, determining he failed to demonstrate any prosecutorial bias on the part of special counsel Jack Smith in bringing the case.

“She certainly has signaled with her rapid disposition of the selected prosecution motion, with setting a quick briefing schedule and a speedy hearing on the 16th that she wants to keep things moving, and that is how the justice system should work,” Norm Eisen, who served as counsel for Democrats in Trump’s first impeachment, told The Hill.

In her order, Chutkan wrote that Trump had again offered an “improper reframing” of the allegations against him and determined the former president offered “no meaningful evidence” that he was unfairly targeted.

Chutkan has consistently offered a contrast with Judge Aileen Cannon, who oversees Trump’s Florida-based documents case. She’s more speedily resolved a number of pending matters in the January 6 case, while Cannon’s Mar-a-Lago case has plodded along with lengthy hearings on long-shot motions from Trump.

And while Cannon agreed to toss Trump’s documents case, Chutkan rejected his effort to do so with immunity claims—teeing up the battle that has now boomeranged back to her courtroom.

In the wake of the high court’s decision, Chutkan is now tasked with determining what conduct from Trump’s effort to unwind the 2020 election is not immune from prosecution.

The public will get their first look at Smith’s thinking on the matter by August 9, when Chutkan has ordered both sides to jointly lay out their vision for how they think the case should proceed.

It’s possible Smith could ask for an evidentiary hearing—something some Trump critics see as a “minitrial” that would allow the public to learn more about the evidence prosecutors plan to offer.

“There’s no reason for further delay here. It’s already outrageous that the case has been delayed as long as it has. It was supposed to go to trial in March. We should have had a verdict long ago, so the least the judicial system can do is give us a minitrial to—to some extent—air the allegations and offer a determination of whether they’re immune or not,” Eisen said.

“I think Judge Chutkan will ultimately rule that the majority—indeed, the vast majority, of the indictmen—consists of allegations where immunity does not apply.”

The Supreme Court’s ruling last month determined former presidents are immune from prosecution for actions they take in office that are part of their core executive functions, and that they are presumptively immune for all other official acts.

In doing so, the justices called out one specific element of the indictment—barring use of Trump’s pressure campaign at the Justice Department as the basis for any charges.

But it’s now up to Chutkan to parse out the rest of the indictment and determine where else Trump might be protected from prosecution—and which elements of his plot to stay in power can still land him prison time.

Research contact: @thehill

September 26, 2024

Vice President Kamala Harris sat down with MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle on Wednesday, September 25—fielding questions on her economic agenda, former President Donald Trump’s economic plans, and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz (D), reports The Hill

.The MSNBC interview was a friendly forum for the vice president, who has been under pressure to ramp up her media presence. Harris sat down with Ruhle in Pittsburgh, following an economic-focused speech in which she laid out a framework for her manufacturing agenda.

Here are five takeaways from Harris’s interview on MSNBC:

Harris lays out pricey agenda

Much of the interview was spent talking about the economy and involved Harris outlining her agenda. Her “opportunity economy” involves a housing plan to help first-time homebuyers, a child tax plan that involves expanding credits to families, and a plan to boost small businesseswith tax deductions for entrepreneurs, among other proposals.

“If you are hardworking, if you have the dreams and the ambitions and the aspirations I believe you do, you’re in my plan,” she said.

When it comes to how to pay for some programs, Harris reiterated that she would not raise taxes on Americans making less than $400,000—maintaining a pillar of President Joe Biden’s tax plan—but that corporations should pay their “fair share” in taxes.

Much of Harris’s economic agenda would need congressional approval, particularly when it comes to tax policy. That would make it an uphill battle, should Congress see a Republican majority; but also if either or both chambers are closely split between parties.

Ruhle questioned the vice president on polling that shows likely voters think Trump is better on the economy. Harris recently closed the gap with Trump on the economy in one survey — an Associated Press/NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll that found Harris and Trump with equal support on the issue.

“Donald Trump left us with the worst economy since the Great Depression,” Harris said, citing data that about 200,000 manufacturing jobs were lost during the Trump years.

Walz pick was gut decision

Toward the end of the interview, Ruhle asked Harris when was the last time she made a “gut decision,” given that decisions made by presidents take “extraordinary instinct and guts.”

“When’s the last time you had to make a gut decision? This here is very prescribed. It’s very controlled,” Ruhle asked, referring to the interview setup.

“The biggest gut decision I made most recently was to choose my running mate,” Harris responded, referring to her decision to pick Walz to run as her vice president. “There were lots of good, incredible candidates, and ultimately that came down to a gut decision.”

Harris picked Walz in August, just more than a month after she announced her presidential bid. The governor emerged as a dark horse contender for the slot just before Harris made her choice, being selected over other more high-profile names Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro (D) and Arizona Senator Mark Kelly (D) ,who were largely viewed for weeks as the favorites for the position.

Harris knocks Trump on tariffs

Harris bashed Trump for his suggestion to place tariffs on foreign companies, which he has laid out repeatedly on the campaign trail.

“Part of it is, you don’t just throw around the idea of just tariffs across the board, and that’s part of the problem with Donald Trump,” Harris said when Ruhle asked about the former president’s plans to expand tariffs.

“He’s just not very serious about how he thinks about some of these issues,” Harris added. “One must be serious and have a real plan that’s not just about some talking point ending in an exclamation at a political rally.”

Trump gave an economic-focused speech this week in Pennsylvania, during which he spoke about his plan to use tariffs, continuing to expand on his claims that he wants to expand the use of tariffs if he’s elected.

He also threatened Illinois-based John Deerewith massive tariffs on its products if it outsources some of its manufacturing to Mexico, as it has previously announced.

Harris defends opposition to U.S. Steel sale

Harris defended her opposition to Japanese steelmaker Nippon Steel acquiring U.S. Steel, after Ruhle mentioned the potential consequences of blocking it.

U.S. Steel warned earlier this month that it may cut staff and move its headquarters from Pittsburgh, if the company’s planned sale falls apart. Nippon Steel announced it would acquire U.S. Steel in December—prompting outcry from lawmakers, including Biden and Trump, who argued the deal could undermine national security and industrial capacity.

“It’s most important that we maintain America’s ability to have American manufacturing [of] steel by American workers for a number of reasons,” Harris said, defending the opposition.

“There is not a new industry that I can imagine that is not going to require steel,” she added, noting, “And having American workers in an American company manufacturing that steel for those industries is going to be critically important.”

Ruhle interview is Harris’s deepest on policy

Harris’s interview with Ruhle went deeper into her proposed economic policies than any of the other media appearances and interviews she’s done to date as the Democratic nominee.

Ruhle questioned Harris, for example, on how she planned to pay for such proposals and how the federal government would cut through red tape to reach municipalities on matters such as the shortage of housing.

The vice president outlined incentives the federal government can create for communities to build more homes and provide transit. Harris maintains that such proposals could be paid for with an increase in corporate taxes but has not gotten into details about how such hikes could get through Congress.

“I know that we have to reduce the red tape and speed up what we need to do around building, and that is going to require working from the federal level with state and local governments,” she said.

Research contact: @thehill