Trump seeks new pause in classified documents case, citing Supreme Court’s immunity ruling

Donald Trump says the Supreme Court’s ruling that he has blanket immunity from prosecution for his “official acts” as president should result in a monthslong pause of his criminal proceedings in Florida.

The Friday filing by Trump’s legal team with U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon is the latest move by the former president to seize on the high court’s landmark immunity ruling to sideline his lingering criminal cases. He is asking Cannon for a chance to argue the immunity issue before her between now and early September, effectively pausing all other proceedings in the case by two months.

Trump has argued that his decision to transmit classified documents to his Florida home as he prepared to leave the presidency should be treated as an “official act” and be removed from special counsel Jack Smith’s case against Trump for allegedly hoarding national security secrets at his Mar-a-Lago estate. Now, he says, the Supreme Court’s ruling requires that the case be put on hold until the immunity issue is resolved.

The push by Trump is the latest effort to wield the Supreme Court’s decision as a weapon in his ongoing cases in Florida, Washington, D.C. and Georgia, each of which implicate some of Trump’s actions in his final months in the White House. The ruling has already scrambled plans for New York state judge Juan Merchan to sentence Trump on his 34-count conviction for concealing evidence of his alleged 2006 affair with porn star Stormy Daniels. Though that case centered on Trump’s private actions, some of the evidence prosecutors relied on overlapped with his first two years in the White House, which Trump contends should have been treated as off-limits.

Trump also used his Friday filing to point to President Joe Biden’s July 1 remarks panning the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling. It was the most explicit commentary by Biden about the criminal charges Trump is facing brought by the special counsel.

“The remark explicitly connected the Special Counsel’s Office with President Biden’s misuse of the criminal justice system to communicate with voters prior to the election,” Trump’s attorneys Todd Blanche and Emil Bove wrote.

Trump’s team also urged Cannon to focus on Justice Clarence Thomas’ concurring opinion in the immunity ruling, which raised questions about whether Smith’s appointment as special counsel was constitutional. Cannon has been weighing Trump’s challenge to Smith’s constitutionality for weeks — including two days of hearings on the matter last month. Thomas’ opinion wasn't joined by any other justice, but it may provide more of an impetus for the Trump-appointed trial judge to weigh in against Smith.