The Messenger reports:

In theory, Donald Trump is facing down the prospect of four criminal trials in four different cases next year that clash with the core period of his campaign to return to the White House.

In practice, as court filings, judicial rulings, public statements and other recent developments have illustrated, Trump could face just one trial on his road to Election Day 2024.

By all accounts, including her own, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan has no intention of budging on the March 4, 2024, start date of Trump’s Washington D.C., trial on federal election-subversion charges.

But even Chutkan, an appointee of President Barack Obama, doesn’t have total control over her schedule: Trump’s lawyers are pressing to get a pre-trial ruling from Chutkan on whether their client has absolute immunity from Special Counsel Jack Smith’s criminal charges due to his status as a former president of the United States.

That’s a question that the U.S. Supreme Court has never weighed in on before, and Trump’s push for a resolution has the potential to upend the current trial schedule.

Everything else on Trump’s legal calendar is seemingly in flux as well. [Continue reading…]