Former President Donald J. Trump’s team of lawyers in the multiple criminal and civil cases pending against him have asserted the claim that he has absolute immunity. In one of these cases, the Department of Justice indictment of Trump over the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, special counsel Jack Smith took the nearly unprecedented move of going right to the U.S. Supreme Court asking for an expedited appeal of Trump’s immunity argument.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan of the District of Columbia denied Trump’s request for immunity and set a potential trial date for March 2024. Trump has been indicted for attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election result by various actions culminating in the Jan. 6 riot. Trump’s attorneys have appealed this interlocutory order to the court of appeals. The Supreme Court denied the DOJ’s emergency petition for a quick decision regarding Trump’s claim of absolute immunity. The case was remanded to the court of appeals, which scheduled oral argument for Jan. 9, 2024.