Special counsel asks for 3-week delay on immunity roadmap in Trump's Jan. 6 case

Special counsel Jack Smith is asking for a three-week delay to come up with a joint motion to proceed in the federal case against Donald Trump, pushing back a Friday deadline to outline each side’s path forward in the prosecution of the former president’s role on January 6.

D.C. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan had previously scheduled an August 16 hearing to clarify a path forward after the Supreme Court ruled her court must discern between official, protected acts Trump took as president and unofficial, unprotected acts, finally allowing the case to move forward.

Per the special counsel’s office, the team needs more time to understand the “new precedent set forth last month” by the top court, which granted presidents sweeping immunity over “official acts,” without clearly defining those powers.

"Although those consultations are well underway, the government has not finalized its position on the most appropriate schedule for the parties to brief issues related to the decision," Smith's office said, according to ABC News.

Trump’s legal team did not object to the motion, which in some ways indicated that Smith’s office was partially uncertain about how to move forward in the case over Trump’s 2020 and 2021 actions.

Smith’s delay comes in a years-long stretch of delays imposed by other forces on the case investigating Trump’s election subversion attempts, and after federal judge Aileen Cannon tossed a separate case prosecuted by his office.

The delay to late August makes it unlikely that any proceedings, including hearings on the acts Trump took, would take place ahead of Trump’s September 18 sentencing in New York in a separate case.