Judge in Trump's federal election subversion case rejects defense effort to dismiss the prosecution

WASHINGTON (AP) — The federal judge presiding over the election subversion case against former President Donald Trump rejected Saturday a defense effort to dismiss the indictment on claims that he was prosecuted for vindictive and political purposes.

The ruling from U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan is the first substantive order since the case was returned to her Friday following a landmark Supreme Court opinion last month that conferred broad immunity for former presidents and narrowed special counsel Jack Smith's case against Trump.

In their motion to dismiss the indictment, defense lawyers argued that Trump was mistreated because he was prosecuted even though others who have challenged election results have avoided criminal charges. Trump, the Republican nominee in the 2024 presidential race, also suggested that President Joe Biden and the Justice Department launched a prosecution to prevent him from winning reelection.

But Chutkan rejected both arguments, saying Trump was not charged simply for challenging election results but instead for “knowingly making false statements in furtherance of criminal conspiracies and for obstruction of election certification proceedings.” She also said that his lawyers had misread news media articles that they had cited in arguing that the prosecution was political in nature.

“After reviewing Defendant’s evidence and arguments, the court cannot conclude that he has carried his burden to establish either actual vindictiveness or the presumption of it, and so finds no basis for dismissing this case on those grounds,” Chutkan wrote in her order.

Also Saturday, she scheduled an Aug. 16 status conference to discuss next steps in the case.

The four-count indictment, brought in August 2023, accuses Trump of conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election he lost to Biden through a variety of schemes, including by badgering his vice president, Mike Pence, to block the formal certification of electoral votes.

Trump's lawyers argued that he was immune from prosecution as a former president, and the case has been on hold since December as his appeal worked its way through the courts.

The Supreme Court, in a 6-3 opinion, held that presidents enjoy absolute immunity for core constitutional duties and are presumptively immune from prosecution for all other official acts. The justices sent the case back to Chutkan to determine which acts alleged in the indictment can remain part of the prosecution and which must be discarded.

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump claps at a campaign rally at Georgia State University in Atlanta, Saturday, Aug. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — A roadside bomb hit a vehicle carrying officers assigned to protect health workers conducting a polio immunization drive in a former stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban in northwestern Pakistan on Monday, wounding six officers and three civilians, officials said.

No polio workers were hurt in the attack in South Waziristan, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, local police official Tahrir Sarfraz said.

He said no one has claimed responsibility for the attack, which apparently targeted police.

Anti-polio campaigns in Pakistan are regularly marred by violence. Militants target vaccination teams and police assigned to protect them, falsely claiming that the campaigns are a Western conspiracy to sterilize children.

The latest attack came hours after Pakistan launched a drive to vaccinate 30 million children against polio. Since January, Pakistan has reported 17 new cases, jeopardizing decades of efforts to eliminate polio in the country.

Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan are the only countries in which the spread of polio has never been stopped.

The potentially fatal, paralyzing disease mostly strikes children under age 5 and typically spreads through contaminated water.

A health worker administers a polio vaccine to a child in a downtown area of Lahore, Pakistan, Monday, Sept. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary)

A health worker administers a polio vaccine to a child at a school in Peshawar, Pakistan, Monday, Sept. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Muhammad Sajjad)

A health worker administers a polio vaccine to a child in a market in downtown area of Lahore, Pakistan, Monday, Sept. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary)

A police officer stands guard as a health worker, right, administers a polio vaccine to a child in a neighbourhood of Peshawar, Pakistan, Monday, Sept. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Muhammad Sajjad)