The new role of the Supreme Court has just fallen, particularly without expedited consideration of Trump’s claim of presidential immunity in his 2020 election interference case – a critical question that will determine whether he can stand trial for trying to overturn the results of the last presidential election.
The one-sentence order, with no known dissent, means a federal appeals court in Washington will be the first to hear the case a district judge’s ruling earlier this month rejecting Trump’s claim of immunity — with arguments set to begin Jan. 9.
The move (or lack thereof) comes eight days after the USSC agreed to it to consider whether to expedite the hearing of special counsel Jack Smith’s petition to short-circuit the appeals court and immediately address Trump’s claim of presidential immunity to try to have the case dismissed. Smith argued that The public interest now required intervention so that his well-timed case against the former president could proceed as planned in March.
“This case involves – for the first time in our nation’s history – criminal charges against a former president based on his actions while in office,” Smith said in his filing, requesting an abnormally quick review. “And not just any actions: alleged actions to keep themselves in power by frustrating the constitutionally mandated process for certifying the lawful winner of an election.”
Trump’s lawyers, on the other hand argued that the matter was too important to be rushedand that Smith did the bidding of Joe Biden’s re-election campaign — saying the special counsel “confuses the ‘public interest’ with the clear partisan interest in ensuring that President Trump will be subjected to a months-long criminal trial at the height of a presidential campaign where he is the leading candidate and the only serious opponent of the current government.”
“The combination of a nearly three-year wait to present this case and the Special Counsel’s current demand for an extraordinary expedition, supported by the vaguest of justifications, creates a compelling inference of partisan motivation,” Trump attorney D wrote. John Sauer.
The move comes after Trump appealed an appeals court judge’s rejection of that argument.
If The Reactionary noted last week;
The setting of Trump’s DC trial for spring 2024 – conveniently scheduled a day before the Super Tuesday primaries – was undoubtedly the result of a shared interest between the special counsel and the president’s judge, Tanya Chutkan: to convict Donald Trump before the 2024 election. Furthermore, given the over eleven million pages of documents involved in this case, the hundreds (if not thousands) of hours of video and audio, and the hundreds of witnesses, the expedited trial date violated Trump’s Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel, including the opportunity to do so prepare for the lawsuit.
The DC special counsel’s case against Trump includes new legal theories that have never been tried in American courts, specifically whether presidential challenges to elections are punishable under the U.S. Code. Trump’s lawyers filed lengthy and thoughtful motions, reasoning that the Constitution and the doctrine of presidential immunity required the dismissal of this criminal case. Judge Chutkan denied them all in her desire for a speedy trial.
This is the last thing Smith wanted…