Trump's Lawyers To Seek Dismissal Of Federal Election Case As Two Sides Weigh Next Steps

WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawyers for Donald Trump intend to urge a judge to dismiss the federal election subversion case against the former president following a Supreme Court opinion that narrowed the scope of the landmark prosecution, according to a court filing late Friday.

The defense team foreshadowed a series of anticipated challenges that would draw out until deep into next year the criminal case charging Trump with plotting to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Those include arguments that a new and more limited indictment issued by prosecutors this week still contains allegations for which Trump, as a former president, is entitled to immunity, such as his conversations with former Vice President Mike Pence.

Defense lawyers also intend “as a threshold matter” to seek the dismissal of the case on the same grounds that a federal judge in Florida cited last month in tossing out a separate prosecution charging Trump with illegally hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate. The judge in that case, Aileen Cannon, held that special counsel Jack Smith, whose team brought the case, was unlawfully appointed and that his office was improperly funded.

The federal court filing in Washington, submitted jointly by prosecutors and defense lawyers, offers dueling proposals for next steps in the criminal case and precedes a status conference set for next week — the first court appearance in the case in months.

The timetable proposed by the Trump team envisions the the case remaining snarled in pretrial arguments up until potentially fall 2025, or well after this November’s presidential election. Smith’s team did not propose specific dates but said it would be prepared to file an opening legal brief on