The US Supreme Court has announced that it will consider Trump’s claim of presidential immunity after an appeals court ruled against him. This delay could either push the DC criminal trial over Trump’s attempts to overturn his 2020 election loss late into the 2024 presidential election or derail the case entirely. The court had the option of rejecting Trump’s appeal without hearing the arguments, but instead set oral arguments for the week of 22 April. If the justices come to a speedy decision in early May, the trial would be pushed off until mid-summer at the earliest. This might not be enough time to actually hold the trial before the election and plays right into Trump’s explicit legal strategy of trying to delay his criminal trials.
The DC trial is on hold until the justices issue a ruling, and the best estimate of the trial date will come “by adding 87 days to the date of the Supreme Court’s final decision.”. By those calculations, even if the court issues a rapid decision in early May, the case may not be ready for trial until August.
If Trump wins the election, he will have enough executive authority to make the case go away. The Republican national convention, where Trump will probably be nominated by the GOP as their presidential candidate, is set for July 15–18, and the election itself will be on November 5. If the trial happens, it will land between those dates, but it just might not happen at all.