The Daily Fuckup

By May 11, 2024, Donald Trump’s immunity fight was still unfinished. The Supreme Court had heard oral argument on April 25 in the federal election-interference case brought by special counsel Jack Smith, and the justices had not yet issued a ruling. That left the case paused while the court considered whether Trump could claim criminal immunity for conduct tied to his time in office.

The immunity question mattered because it went to the heart of the prosecution’s timing and scope. The Justice Department argued that former presidents do not get criminal immunity for official acts and that parts of the indictment involve conduct that was not official in the first place. Trump’s lawyers argued the opposite: that actions taken while he was president should be shielded from criminal prosecution.

The immediate effect in mid-May was a stay, not a final answer. The D.C. proceedings were on hold pending the Supreme Court’s decision, and the trial timetable remained unsettled. Any return to trial would still depend on how the justices ruled and whether further proceedings were needed in the lower court.

So as of May 11, there was no immunity ruling, no locked-in trial date, and no clean procedural exit for Trump. There was only a constitutional fight still waiting on the Supreme Court, and a federal case that could not realistically move ahead until that fight was resolved.