CNN's Ellie Honig called out Judge Tanya Chutkan as “hypocritical” on Thursday for telling former President Donald Trump's team that the upcoming election was not being taken into consideration when setting trial dates.
Judge Chutkan held the first hearing in special counsel Jack Smith's election interference case against President Trump on Thursday, and then announced a pretrial schedule that set a deadline for final motions of Nov. 7. Prior to the schedule announcement, Honig said on “The Lead with Jake Tapper” that while the judge had argued that he would not take Election Date into consideration, he had previously “aligned” with Smith in arguing for the case to be “tried before the election.” (Related article: After presidential immunity ruling, Judge Chutkan faces long road to getting Trump case back on track)
“It was interesting today because we heard Judge Chutkan say to the Donald Trump campaign, 'We're not thinking about Election Day at all,' which is a textbook statement, but if you think about it realistically, there's hypocrisy here, because early on in this litigation, Judge Chutkan was very aligned with Jack Smith and was desperate to get this litigation over before the election,” Honig said.
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“The original trial date was seven months after the indictment. That's ridiculous. You can't try a case with 13 million documents seven months after it was indicted. Cases don't normally go to trial that quickly,” Honig said. “So Judge Chutkan and Jack Smith clearly had a trial date, Election Day, very much in mind when they were looking to get this done before the election. But then the Supreme Court decision changed everything, and all of a sudden Judge Chutkan said, 'Oh, we're not thinking about that.' I don't really buy that statement.”
Smith's lawsuit against Trump was suspended in December.
Judge Chutkan ordered prosecutors to file their initial briefs on presidential immunity by September 26, and the Trump campaign to file their initial rebuttal by October 17. The judge also ordered the filing of papers by the end of October.
During the hearing, prosecutors presented their case for why they believe the new indictment complies with the Supreme Court's immunity ruling, but Trump's defense team pushed back and demanded a longer timeline. According to “I'm not concerned about the election date,” Chutkan told the court at the time, according to CNN.
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