Critics of former president Donald Trump and some legal experts voiced frustration after the Supreme Court announced it would take up Trump\u2019s claim of total presidential immunity, a move that will further delay his D.C. criminal trial centered on his attempts to overturn the 2020 election.<\/p>\n
The trial judge and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit had already rejected Trump\u2019s argument that he cannot be prosecuted for actions taken while he was in office, and his D.C. criminal trial had previously been scheduled to begin Monday. In taking Trump\u2019s case, however, the Supreme Court also ordered Wednesday that his trial continue to be placed on hold pending its final decision.<\/p>\n
Democrats, as well as Republicans who served on the House select committee to investigate the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol \u2014 in which a pro-Trump mob stormed the complex seeking to stop the certification of Democrat Joe Biden\u2019s electoral win \u2014 expressed disappointment with the Supreme Court\u2019s decision and its timing. They noted it would push Trump\u2019s trial deeper into a critical election year.<\/p>\n
\u201cDelaying the January 6 trial suppresses critical evidence that Americans deserve to hear,\u201d former Wyoming congresswoman Liz Cheney, a Republican, wrote in a social media post that her fellow former GOP colleague Adam Kinzinger endorsed. \u201cDonald Trump attempted to overturn an election and seize power. Our justice system must be able to bring him to trial before the next election. SCOTUS should decide this case promptly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, posited that one of two things would happen in what he called an \u201cepic self-test\u201d for the Supreme Court: that the justices would \u201cquickly follow clear precedent and constitutional text and dispense with the immunity argument 9-0 in time to permit the case to proceed\u201d or that it would be \u201cBush v. Gore 2.0 with Republican justices stepping in to influence a presidential outcome by interfering in an ongoing prosecution.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Supreme Court set a fast-tracked schedule for the former president\u2019s attorneys and special counsel Jack Smith\u2019s prosecutors to file written arguments over the next seven weeks on this question: \u201cWhether and if so to what extent does a former president enjoy presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for conduct alleged to involve official acts during his tenure in office.\u201d<\/p>\n
The high court is set to hear oral arguments in the case the week of April 22. All opinions are typically handed down by the last day of the court\u2019s term in late June or early July before it recesses for the summer, meaning that Trump \u2014 who is marching toward the GOP presidential nomination \u2014 is not likely to face trial before summer at the earliest, if at all.<\/p>\n
If the Supreme Court rejects his appeal in May or June and agrees that he can be prosecuted, a trial could be rescheduled in about six to 12 weeks, still before the 2024 election. But if the court requires the trial judge to parse immune conduct from nonimmune conduct, all bets are off. And if the high court returns the case to District Judge Tanya Chutkan in July, it would force the Justice Department to decide whether to press for a trial \u2014 one that is projected to last six to eight weeks \u2014 to start around Labor Day and go to a jury in October, with mail-in voting already underway.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe they [issue] the decision on April 23 and everything goes back to order, but maybe they dawdle on the decision for months and let Trump run out the clock on a properly indicted criminal case, not because of the merits but because they have intervened with delay,\u201d Whitehouse told The Washington Post.<\/p>\n
Trump cheered the decision Wednesday, posting on his social media network that unnamed legal scholars were \u201cextremely thankful\u201d that the Supreme Court was taking up his case.<\/p>\n
\u201cWithout Presidential Immunity, a President will not be able to properly function, or make decisions, in the best interest of the United States of America,\u201d Trump wrote on Truth Social.<\/p>\n
There is no deadline for Trump to face trial in D.C., but Smith has urged that the trial be held swiftly in the national interest \u2014 and Trump\u2019s critics have argued that voters should have the benefit of knowing the judicial system\u2019s verdict on Trump before Election Day. Trump has argued that voters should serve as his ultimate jury. If Trump is elected president in November, he could seek to end the prosecution.<\/p>\n
Legal experts had conflicting opinions over whether the Supreme Court\u2019s decision to hear Trump\u2019s case could be considered \u201cslow-walking\u201d proceedings in favor of the former president.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a momentous decision just to hear this case. There was no reason in this world for the Supreme Court to take this case,\u201d J. Michael Luttig, a conservative jurist and former U.S. circuit judge, told MSNBC on Wednesday upon immediately hearing the news, adding that the three-judge panel on the D.C. appeals court had already written a \u201cmasterful opinion\u201d denying Trump\u2019s claims of absolute immunity.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Supreme Court is capable of deciding this very quickly, in time that the former president could be tried before the election,\u201d Luttig added. \u201cBut today\u2019s decision makes that that much more unlikely.\u201d<\/p>\n
Michael Waldman, president of New York University\u2019s Brennan Center for Justice, was adamant that the court was \u201cmoseying\u201d needlessly. He noted that the seven weeks that the court has allowed for both sides to file written arguments is nearly twice as long as the same period the court allowed in Trump v. Anderson earlier this year, a case centered on whether Trump should be barred from the ballot in Colorado if he engaged in insurrection.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s slow-walking. There\u2019s very few other ways, in my view, to interpret it,\u201d Waldman told The Washington Post on Thursday. \u201cThis appears to be the approach that helps Trump the most while appearing not to \u2026 They will still almost certainly rule that he is immune from prosecution. However, by dragging out the timeline, in reality they are making him immune from prosecution, before the election at least.\u201d<\/p>\n
Waldman pointed out that the Supreme Court has handled in the past other critical cases dealing with the presidency with much more alacrity. In 1974\u2032s United States v. Nixon, for example, the court heard arguments and issued a decision in a matter of weeks. In 2000\u2032s Bush v. Gore, the Supreme Court agreed to take up the case, heard oral arguments and issued a decision within days.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis case is just as important, probably more important, than the Pentagon Papers case, or the [Watergate] tapes case,\u201d Fred Wertheimer, president of the nonprofit watchdog group Democracy 21, said Wednesday. \u201cIf they wait and issue the opinion at the end of the term in June, they likely will have knowingly prevented voters from knowing if Trump is a convicted felon before they vote. They will have rewarded Trump\u2019s delaying strategy at the enormous expense of the country and the Supreme Court.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jonathan Turley, a conservative attorney and professor at George Washington University Law School, argued that the Supreme Court \u2014 an institution \u201coften criticized as moving at a glacial pace\u201d \u2014 was in this case actually moving at \u201ca NASCAR pace.\u201d Turley also said he still believes special counsel Jack Smith has the upper hand on the merits of the case.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese cases on the state and federal level were brought after considerable delays,\u201d Turley wrote in an email to The Post. \u201cThis case concerns actions taken almost four years ago. The Court did not create this potential collision with the presidential election. It has expedited the consideration of the case.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a post Wednesday to his \u201cElection Law\u201d blog, legal scholar Richard Hasen said that he had assumed the long gap between Trump\u2019s attempt to stay his criminal trial meant the Supreme Court was not going to grant it. Hasen also expressed doubt that, if the Supreme Court did not issue an opinion until late June, Trump would be put on trial during the general election season.<\/p>\n
\u201cEarly on, I called this federal election subversion case potentially the most important case in this Nation\u2019s history,\u201d Hasen wrote. \u201cAnd [now] it may not happen because of timing, timing that is completely in the Supreme Court\u2019s control. After all, this is the second time the Court has not expedited things to hear this case. This could well be game over.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Supreme Court decision should not affect Trump\u2019s state criminal case in New York, which is scheduled to start in less than four weeks.<\/p>\n
Trump is set to go to trial March 25 in state court in Manhattan on 34 counts of falsifying business records related to a $130,000 hush money payment made to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels in 2016, on the eve of that year\u2019s presidential election.<\/p>\n
The former president has raised a similar immunity defense in his separate federal criminal prosecution in Florida, and his separate state trial in Georgia \u2014 it is not yet clear how those issues could be affected by the Supreme Court\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n
Ann E. Marimow contributed to this report.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Critics of former president Donald Trump and some legal experts voiced frustration after the Supreme Court announced it would take up Trump\u2019s claim of total presidential immunity, a move that will further delay his D.C. criminal trial centered on his attempts to overturn the 2020 election. The trial judge and the U.S. Court of Appeals […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1625,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1624\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}