Timing isn’t everything. But it certainly matters, and seldom more so than in special counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution of Donald Trump.
The former US president intends to use timing – delay, delay, delay – to avoid punishment for trying to overturn the 2020 election, which he lost to Joe Biden, and for fomenting a violent coup.
Nope, said Smith this week. A tough guy who has prosecuted war crimes in the Hague, Smith clearly recognizes that putting off the case until after next fall’s presidential election could let Trump off the hook.
So the prosecutor made a bold legal maneuver. Smith moved to bypass the court of appeals, whose involvement could slow things down considerably, and to go directly to the US supreme court for a decision on a foundational issue.
Problem is the Supreme Court could sit on that decision until after the election. And I read the courts have paused said trail until they get an answer.
This could backfire because the Supreme Court is corrupt.
Defense motioned to the Court for a stay pending appeal. Judge Chutkan granted such a stay, because she had to; there is no other choice. However, she was very clear that that stay only puts on hold the various deadline dates for pretrial motions and discovery and such. As of right now, all of the protections in place remain (including the gag order in that case), as well as the March 4, 2024, trial date, although that trial date may be adjusted depending on how long the appeal goes.
The DC Circuit Court of Appeals is moving much faster on this appeal than they did with their almost year-long process which found that Trump can be civilly sued for Jan6 events. SCOTUS has already agreed to expedite the process of considering whether they will take the case (because of Jack Smith’s motion to SCOTUS to do so), and they’re asking for a hasty response from Trump’s defense team.
But based on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals moving quickly on this appeal, I suspect SCOTUS will ultimately decline to hear the case, and let stand the appeals court ruling.
I was serious about this Defense immunity/double jeopardy argument being frivolous. There is absolutely no way any court finds in Trump’s favor on either of those points - and Defense knows it. The whole point is to delay, as is made obvious by their motion to delay the appeal proceedings, apparently because Jack Smith is the Grinch? If Defense was serious about these arguments, and thought they had any chance of winning this appeal, they would want that appeals process to go forward as quickly as possible, because winning that appeal means their client becomes not only “unindicted,” but “unibictable.” One might even argue that Defense counsel moving to delay the appeals process is acting in opposition to the interests of the defendant, amounting to legal malpractice.
But I digress.
While not impossible, highly unlikely. The repercussions of ruling that a president can never be criminally charged for actions taken while holding office puts the persons who are Supreme Court Justices at direct personal risk, because such a ruling would explicitly enable a sitting president to commit crimes, not the least of which would certainly be to imprison or murder their political enemies - remember, with impunity - and SCOTUS would be on the short list there.
No, SCOTUS justices having a lifelong term means that they have a much longer view of American politics than people who have to run for election every two or four or six years. They will act to protect themselves personally, even if they are not acting to protect a functioning democracy.
There’s no point in carrying out the trial if he has immunity