Chutkan rebuffs Trump effort to upend Jan. 6 case schedule

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan on Tuesday rebuffed a request from former President Trump asking her to upend previously set deadlines and bar a lengthy filing from special counsel Jack Smith.

The order from Chutkan comes after Trump lodged multiple complaints about her ruling, issued shortly after a Sept. 5 hearing, to allow Smith’s team to first file a brief laying out how to proceed in the case in the wake of the Supreme Court decision granting former presidents broad immunity.

Chutkan chastised Trump’s attorneys for repeatedly asking her to reconsider her schedule and allow them to kick off discussion of the immunity issue “several months from now” in unrelated filings.

“For the second time in a week, Defendant urges reconsideration of the current pretrial schedule in a brief intended to respond to a separate issue, and without actually filing a motion to that effect,” she wrote.

“The court has already addressed the scheduling objections Defendant raised when he was given an opportunity to do so.”

In the same order, Chutkan grants Smith’s request to file a 180-page opening brief on how to address the immunity issues in the case, a request that likewise earned pushback from Trump’s team.

Trump’s attorneys called the brief a “180-page false hit piece” and seemed to mock the special counsel’s contention it would be of “great assistance” to Chutkan.

“The requested 180-page brief would be tantamount to a premature and improper Special Counsel report,” they added.