Supreme Court to Hear Trump Immunity Claim on April 22
The order is here.
The application for a stay presented to The Chief Justice is referred by him to the Court. The Special Counsel’s request to treat the stay application as a petition for a writ of certiorari is granted, and that petition is granted limited to the following question: Whether 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. Without expressing a view on the merits, this Court directs the Court of Appeals to continue withholding issuance of the mandate until the sending down of the judgment of this Court. The application for a stay is dismissed as moot.
The case will be set for oral argument during the week of April 22, 2024. Petitioner’s brief on the merits, and any amicus curiae briefs in support or in support of neither party, are to be filed on or before Tuesday, March 19, 2024. Respondent’s brief on the merits, and any amicus curiae briefs in support, are to be filed on or before Monday, April 8, 2024. The reply brief, if any, is to be filed on or before 5 p.m., Monday, April 15, 2024.
This is sub-optimal, insofar as I had hoped they would rule quickly. Perhaps Trump’s immunity claim in Florida changed that?
Nevertheless, we should get an order in June, and so possibly a trial starting in late August?
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Thank you.
What a load of shit.
Succinct and accurate!
The term *alleged is quite telling to me.
I’ll bet my house that NO decision is issued before the election.
“I worry that no matter how cynical I get, it’s never enough.”
– Lily Tomlin
The Court had a chance to slam the door on both the DC and Florida immunity claims and they did the worst possible thing. Now the only way we get a Federal criminal verdict against Trump is if he loses the election. That’s far from certain. Why do we do this ourselves? This is all our doing. I’m now preparing my pitch for Irish asylum.
What’s this “we”?
I didn’t do this. Republicans did this.
It’s a cynical ploy intended to delay an inevitable ruling against Trump as long as possible. (No, this Court isn’t going to rule that a President is above criminal prosecution – not while Biden is in the White House. They’re not that stupid. And some of them are extremely paranoid about giving any Democrat any kind of power.)
Alito, Thomas, and other possible traitors are trying to help Trump as much as possible without making a complete mockery of the law. So, we get yet another delay.
Republicans did not do this alone. Merrick Garland and DC Democrats did this by not pursuing a coup attempt right after it happened. They took their own white shoe time, and now we are out of time…as many people predicted, even as some pundits assured us that the rule of law only works if it rolls as slowly as it wants to, political realities be damned.
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Delays by SCOTUS would be immaterial if Garland had acted with reasonable speed, his delays could be fatal to US constitutional democracy. His choice of prosecutors also gave GOP an unending opportunity to smear the Bidens. He was the wrong man for the job.
I hope he’s better prepared to defend voters rights going into the Nov election. I hope we’re not reading about how proud boy squads created mayhem at enough minority voter poll locations in swing states to tip states to trump. We don’t need an after-the-fact DOJ report about structural weaknesses in this vital right.
At least Chief Justice Rehnquist had the good sense to recuse himself in the US v Nixon case in 1974, because of his close ties to the Nixon administration. Today, Clarence Thomas’ wife was deeply involved in J6 and he won’t even consider a recusal.
But we do get a NY state criminal trial in March that can’t be pardoned by a President. It won’t be pardoned by a NY Governor either. Now it still remains to be seen if there will be jail time if Trump is convicted.
A conviction in NY should remand the defendant straight to jail, not pass Go, and not to collect $200.00, while his eventual appeal is being considered.
They should have indicted his co-conspirators instead. They wanted to be heroes rather than provide us with relevant information regarding what we’ll be voting for in November.
Indicting all the co-conspirators together would have allowed every one of their separate lawyers to file motions seeking to delay, de-couple, and dismiss each of their distinct cases. If you think Trump alone dragging things out like this is bad, you really *don’t* want to see the kind of chaos multiple defendants could do to drag things out.
Take a look at what is already going on in GA and FL, which proves your point. I note that Meadows lost in his latest attempt to convince the 11th Circuit to move to federal court. While I agree this looks an awful lot like slow-walking there will be silver linings:
Oral argument is likely to be publicly available if not in real time than shortly thereafter. Likewise, the briefs will also be publicly available. Also, to slow-walk past the election SCOTUS would have to sit on this for more than six months as well as past the end of term decision announcement days. That’s even before considering what will likely leak out.
And Trump lost the evidentiary ruling before Cannon. Could the MAL documents case go to trial before the J6 case in DC?
No need to indict them all when the goal is service to the citizenry via information rather than service to the Justice System (and themselves) that they hold paramount to all else.
Did they really worry about this a lot during Watergate?
You better believe they worried about it with Spiro Agnew. They needed to get him out of the way before Nixon resigned or was indicted. Ford becoming president was the result.
That was for a sitting President and sitting Vice-President. Neither is the case here currently.
I think it’s a good idea to hear it, because otherwise the Florida document case is going to get sucked into the same delays and SCOTUS would likely have to take it then. But if you’re gonna hear it now, why the stay? And why sit on it so long before announcing that you’ll hear the case?
“Whether 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.” So the court burns a lot of time, and then sends a rubric back to the lower court to consider each of Trump’s crimes and to what extent each act merits immunity.
SCOTUS is kicking the criminal trials until after the election.
Why the stay?? To maintain status quo until a merits decision is reached. If cert was accepted, of course there would be a continuation of the stay, that is beyond basic.
As Peter noted above, this is still a rocket docket for SCOTUS. SCOTUS, much less the criminal justice system, do not exist to support your personal political thoughts.
And, no, it is not all about Trump, there is a prior history in SCOTUS to the effect that immunity claims actually should be decided by SCOTUS and not in a circuit court (thanks to RBG no less). I had hoped SCOTUS would just deny cert, but clearly there were votes for accepting it. So this is really not that surprising.
As is too often the case lately, people need to take a chill pill and wait for the actual merits result.
I’m not shocked by the action, somewhat disappointed about the schedule as it relates to the articulated issue.
I don’t think SCOTUS CAN fully decide these issues at this stage of the case. It shouldn’t take 3 months to decide a President is not a king.
IOW, if that’s all they’re going to decide, why take so long?
A lengthy appellate detour early in the case over a relatively simple issue (leaving the detailed decisions until the record is developed) seems to fit defendant’s purposes.
Trump is essentially saying, “Nixon should have dragged his feet, I know better.”
I have little doubt that once SCOTUS rules that Judge Chutkan will start trial as soon as possible afterward based on SC Smith’s input. If that piece takes even a week I will be surprised.
That puts trial in the final throes of the campaign, after the time that the GOP can find a replacement candidate.
He’ll no doubt cry it’s not enough time to prepare for trial.
Defendant-1 might but I doubt Chutkan will go for it as a pretrial delay reason.
Put money on it – SCOTUS is not gonna weigh the merits of Trump’s appeal. They’re gonna deliver some rubric to the lower courts to apply to the facts of the case. Which means they are punting until after inauguration next year.
I’m a little confused about one aspect of the order. My understanding is as follows:
If there had been five justices who believed that Trump had a chance to win on the merits, they could have granted his application for a stay. They didn’t do that.
Instead, the court treated the stay application as a writ of certiorari (which was what the Special Counsel asked for). Here’s the part I’m a little unclear on. Does the action they took definitively mean that there were at least four justices who, for whatever reason, wanted to grant cert? And, if that’s true, could some of the justices, if they had chosen to, written that they opposed granting cert? Or was the choice about whether to specify the vote (or opposition) up to CJ Roberts?
I’m looking for an answer to your question from bmaz. I was wondering along your lines.
Only four justices needed for cert. The stay was already in effect previously.
Thank you
I was worried that they might do what the Burger Court would do in death penalty cases: grant cert., deny a stay, and subsequently dismiss the cert. petition as moot after the execution took place.
Some words of explanation (and vote counts) accompanying the decisions of December and today sure would have been helpful.
Thank you BMAZ! Living in the Sonoran desert, I’ve learned to respect the things that poke and bite and enjoy the precious flowers and fruits on the various cacti. This is one of those fruits of the saguaro (BMAZ) that makes me proud to make my monthly donation!
A serious question–when you say “there is a prior history in SCOTUS to the effect that immunity claims actually should be decided by SCOTUS,” I agree. But if it was inevitable SCOTUS was always going to decide the case, is there a compelling reason SCOTUS required it to first go through the paces at the DC Circuit? Is it as simple as the reduced vote count for accepting cert?
Agreed.
The Supreme Court has added months to the schedule. To resolve a frivolous claim of immunity.
So the judicial branch is not going to solve this mortal threat to our system of government by scheduling a big, spectacular trial in time for the election. They are still going to follow the law, I suppose. The cases won’t go away before a pardon, and even then, no pardon in Georgia. If we want a big show trial, then who gives a crap about the American people if we’d prefer to leave the fate of the world on the shoulders of Jack, his team, and twelve jurors in Washington, DC. Maybe one of them forgets they are supposed to save us all? What was the impact of the Mueller Report? Jan 6 investigations? There is the truth. It’s okay. We have a national election and a wise, old codger to vote for. bmaz is right. It’s much better to defeat your political opponent in an election than in court. That is not the place, though nobody knows what else to do, even though Trump is not popular. The facts are already in evidence, but a trial will let Trump make it all a spectacle, and the media loves him like an addict. He is not popular. Why does everyone want this big coup trial where Trump will be Master of Ceremonies? His whole politics is driven by crisis. A normal election is a much better playing field because we all can participate and control the outcome.
I personally don’t want any trial. I fully realize this is beyond the criminal justice system.
I simply want information about the actions Trump and his team engaged in.
Donald Trump is not a political opponent. Donald Trump is an insurrectionist who our system is failing to prevent from obtaining power that he will not willingly give up-just ask him, he’ll tell you.
Whistle past the grave yard.
Me? I’d prefer EVERY avenue be taken to prevent him from taking the oath of office (possibly the last time anyone does) in January 2025.
The American voter is the remedy. None of the crimes Trump is being charged with includes undoing the election if he wins. If the people vote for Trump, that would be a disaster for the country and the world, but so would it be losing the rule of law in order to hasten a prosecution to protect us all from voters we have lost faith in.
I agree with you about multiple strategies. I believe “we the people” will get in right in November as we did in 2020. Unlike pretzel (pun intended), I think a trial will deliver several benefits beyond spectacle. I don’t see trial or election as either-or.
I don’t care about show trials. I just want justice, undelayed and thus undenied.
Ms. Wheeler’s description and excerpts put it within normal scheduling boundaries.
I will bet the nut at even money that there is no trial before the election. Our hopes rest with Alvin Bragg.
And Fani.
Why the stay unless there’s the possibility they’ll overrule the circuit appeals court? Seriously, what are they going to change over the opinion of the appeals court exactly?
“The application for a stay is dismissed as moot.”
SC requested it be treated as a petition for a writ of certiorari [which] is granted, and
that petition is granted limited to the following question: … who’s on first?
i don’t know. really. i don’t. OK-decide the question, but don’t blow up the dam !!
Trump’s appeal is not likely to succeed (and that’s putting it mildly), which is why the district court ruling should not be stayed.
SCOTUS is using the appeal not to rule on the merits of Trump’s appeal – which is meritless – but instead to weigh the hypothetical question “under what theoretical circumstances would POTUS have immunity from prosecution for official acts?”
It’s bullshit.
No, bmaz, the granting of certiorari does not maintain status quo until a merits decision is reached. In one case — I don’t recall the style — a death row inmate’s petition for cert was granted, but a stay of execution was denied. The inmate was executed despite cert having been granted.
“So the court burns a lot of time, and then sends a rubric back to the lower court to consider each of Trump’s crimes and to what extent each act merits immunity.”
If they want the nation to fall apart completely, they’ll follow this advice.
I think a lot of Republicans are in deep denial about just how unpopular Trump is, and how bad it looks for the people who side with him.
I think a lot of Americans are not seeing the train rushing down on them. You think the Republican party has spend the last 4 years preparing to anoint Trump, regardless of the vote tallies?
Right now, this feels like a decision that is all about the institution and protecting its prerogatives. At best. In other words a failure.
The Supreme Court could have set a similar schedule back in December. They are slow walking this with no explanation.
Once SCOTUS decided to take the case, they gave 3 weeks for Trump’s team to file their initial brief, 3 weeks for the Special Council to brief the court, and then 1 week for Trump’s team to reply. My sense is that this is a fast schedule compared with other cases that come to SCOTUS.
ETA: Then they gave themselves one more week to digest it all and prepare for oral arguments.
Please help one of the unwashed understand why in hell it takes three weeks for ostensibly educated adults to assemble what should be mostly assembled already? And then another three weeks for a prosecutor of Smith’s stature to respond?
I’m not a self-conscious person, but I can’t help think the rest of the world is both laughing at and afraid of us.
In the order above, SCOTUS identifies the specific question they want both sides to brief them about. Until SCOTUS puts out the specific question(s) in the cases they accept, the lawyers on each side don’t know exactly what question the court finds worth their time.
And of course, the Special Council’s reply brief depends on what the Trump brief says. The SC can prepare in general, but until they see exactly what Trump’s team said to the court, they can’t finish preparing their reply. The sur-reply that Trump makes to the SC filing is only given a week.
Thank you for your reply. Not to be a badger, but what then is this, if not the “specific question”?
…
“Whether 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. “
That’s the question, and until a couple of hours ago, neither Trump nor the SC knew it.
SC Smith has been very aggressive in submitting filings here, but it sounds like there is zero benefit to rushing things out if we’re looking at 4/22 hell or high water.
I imagine they are going to write their reply like they are forging a katana.
“like they are forging a katana”…
So many layers, all of them steel, and in the end, “it will cut”.
I imagine the same, and struggle to believe that the Trump team briefing will be much better than a KFC spork by comparison.
Not really being into the idea that nobody knew “what the question is”. Not in this case. The position cited in the question is exactly what Trump has been arguing. This isn’t some kind of abstruse mystery.
This may be a fast schedule compared to typical Supreme Court cases, but if they had accepted the case in December and used a similar timeline, Petitioner briefs would have been due in late January, with response briefs due in mid-February.
Yes
No, it is a truly expedited schedule, and has been. “If this” and “if that” is just silly posturing. They do have other cases beyond the political questions that people here seem to think are the ONLY matter. Chill.
Jack Smith argued to SCOTUS last December that we were going to get here anyway, so why not jump the Circuit Court of Appeals and take the case directly? My take is that ApacheTrout was suggesting that Smith was onto something back the.
Not really, Smith made an effort, but it was not surprising in the least it was rebuffed. It was a good effort by Smith, but there were enough votes on SCOTUS to at least opine on the merits. That is okay.
Do you have any thoughts on the apparent strategy of letting the appeals court giving a fully formed opinion before taking it up? Is it just a “this is how we do things” or are there specific advantages for the job SCOTUS needs to do here?
I feel like I/we asked this question when they punted back in December so apologies if this is a rehash.
In a way, they could be severely limiting what actions a President Trump might take on a former President Biden should he win in November.
Most people would let it go, but then Trump isn’t most people.
If the Court broadly rules in Trump’s favor, Trump is betting that Joe Biden won’t take the action against Trump that Trump would take against Joe Biden.
Asymmetric politics (warfare by other means) has been prevalent for some time now.
HikaakiH, yes
They are only adjudicating if a President is criminally liable for an official act. Trump is claiming any act a President does is by default official. If they rule broadly in his favor then they will crown him king.
Seems like a safe bet.
Yeah, chill. SCOTUS has got this.
And go back to your normal business, citizens….
Thanks so much!
Signed,
Al Gore
Imagine a world where Al Gore won in 2000.
Climate Change being addressed, perhaps a liberal super majority on the SC, right to choose still solid, no war in Iraq-even in 9/11 still happened (it might have been prevented), no great recession as Gore would have kept some lid on Wall St. excesses. We wouldn’t be perfect-there are always regressive forces in our country, but imagine 20 years of GW progress!
…and that was before the Court was graced with Kavanaugh. Higher and higher they go.
That would be the same SCOTUS that doesn’t believe a woman’s life is as important than an unborn child’s, correct?
I regret the lack of a snark tag on the comment of mine above.
Sorry, but I don’t view Presidential Immunity claimed by a man who tried to incite a coup as a “political question.”
Not unless “lawless” is now considered a political party.
We can’t expect the courts to save us from a President Trump 2.0. That must come from the electorate and the more forceful the better. Trump’s only real chance of winning in November is to recreate general conditions present in the 2016 election. If too many people think he can’t win, they’ll just vote for someone other than Biden or not vote at all. Let me be blunt, we need at least enough people to fear a Trump 2.0 presidency that voted in 2020. So come November – VOTE
Good thing the Republicans haven’t spent 4 years making sure that voting doesn’t matter.
Okay, paulka123, ease up and slow your roll. This is not the dead bird app for rapid angry hot takes. You’ve left four comments in less than eight minutes, most just venting your spleen. We get it, you’re angry. So noted.
EDIT: You attempted two more comments while I wrote the remarks above. Go do something constructive.
EDIT-2 9:57 p.m.: And now two more comments attempted. You’re officially flooding this thread. You’re done.
Agree
I’m disappointed, but not surprised. The Court’s favor ability is at an all-time low. Letting Trump have “immunity” for the January 6 fiasco will be an open invitation for him to never leave the White House if he is elected.
[Thanks for updating your username to meet the 8 letter minimum. /~Rayne]
This seems to be Steve Vladecks #3 scenerio, but it looks like
he anticipated everything happening quicker.
The One First “Long Read”: Trump and the Court, Redux https://stevevladeck.substack.com/i/141576924/the-one-first-long-read-trump-and-the-court-redux Steve Vladeck 2/12/24
A little more from Vladeck:
If anyone here is still on Twitter, it would be great to see what Vladeck is saying now.
So this is a situation where you can use an account-specific Google search to see the tweets. He only said “BREAKING: #SCOTUS *takes up* January 6 immunity case on an expedited basis; keeps prosecution on hold pending oral argument the week of April 22. Here is the order …”
Thanks c-i-v-i-l…it’s good to know what he said.
I’m not having any luck finding/seeing that Xeet.
He’s having a live question/answer thread for subscribers tonight:
Tonight @ 9 ET: Live Thread on the Court’s Decision to Take Up Trump Immunity Appeal https://stevevladeck.substack.com/p/tonight-9-et-live-thread-on-the-courts/comments
^^^ Evidently, NOT only for subscribers.
https://bsky.app/profile/stevevladeck.bsky.social/post/3kmj5mqp6hl2u
YW. The account-specific search is site:twitter.com/steve_vladeck. Then click on Tools, and in the “Any time” pull-down menu, choose “Past 24 hours.” See if that works for you.
he has a short thread starting here: https://twitter.com/steve_vladeck/status/1762992602373034400
Yes, the Supreme Court is moving faster than normal. It’s not moving as fast as it did when delay did not work in Trump’s favor, as in the Colorado ballot case. Or as fast as it did in ruling on Bush v. Gore.
Thanks for pointing that out. It was interesting to read his responses (and made me wish that some of the knowledgeable people here had participated there). I’ll copy just one of his comments here:
(ellipses in the original)
Great news. Vladeck is also on Bluesky: @stevevladeck.bsky.social, and you can read his timeline without authenticating to the site/app.
THANKS! I couldn’t find that anywhere! :-)
Here’s Vladeck on Threads.net:
https://www.threads.net/@steve_vladeck?hl=en
Thanks to Harpie and all for the Vladek links
I read the free Substack email from Vladek
This is what SteveV said on CNN
Steve Vladek on CNN thinks it is odd the Court took as long as it did to get “only this” ie to come to this framing of the J6 immunity question, which suggests there was a real debate in the Court over the last two weeks about some effort to reach some more definitive conclusion, perhaps a summary decision to affirm the DC Cir conclusion. And what that suggests is that there are a couple of justices in the middle eg Kavanaugh or Coney Barrett who might be very unsympathetic to Trump claims on the merits but also want the Court to give it due consideration which is why we have reached this position.
[re posted from other page as it seems apposite here in reply to harpie, hope that’s ok with moderation]
Yes, it is so “odd” that Steve listed it as one of his three proposed options.
The oddity referred to the •time• they took to get to this particular ouutcome, which was one of the outcomes he had previously discussed and which he mentioned in the preamble to the remarks I quoted verbatim.
Hope that helps
Thanks for the info, SteveBev!
The breadth of the question the Court nominally intends to address does not argue for a quick decision. It suggests intentional delay. A simpler question would have been the narrower one of whether a president could be prosecuted for the crimes Trump is alleged to have committed in the Jan 6th case.
Perhaps, as Marcy suggests, the Court wants to decide the case broadly enough to cover the Jan 6th case, the Florida documents case, etc. But without being liable for it, the Court gives Cannon cover to keep the Florida documents case on hold until after the Supreme Court decides this case. Inevitably, that means Trump will add an immunity claim to every civil and criminal trial he still faces.
The limitation in the question posed by SCOTUS in this case of “during his tenure in office” would argue against direct application of this case to the case in Florida before Judge Cannon. In that case, Trump is being tried for post-presidency conduct.
Except trump has already claimed presidential immunity in the SDFL case. I’m wondering if we’ll see a motion to stay proceedings from Trump this week. So what are the chances that Cannon just puts it all on hold pending SCOTUS ruling? Trump’s claim is ridiculous, for the obvious reasons you pointed out. But does that matter for Cannon?
Edit: Realizing this was largely duplicative of EOH. Sorry!
Taking this observation and Vladeck’s observation together, I think that leaves the door open for SCOTUS to more quickly deny cert for any post-presidential immunity claims spawned from the documents case.
Even if the Court decides a president has some immunity from prosecution for criminal acts committed while in office, it leaves open whether he can be tried for criminal acts committed after he left office.
Before Trump, the answer would have been obvious, but he’s muddied the waters sufficiently for his judicial appointees, that it would allow him to appeal the question.
It’s moot if Trump regains the White House. If he does, he’ll never voluntarily leave it.
At minimum, they want to get their names in the history book making an historic ruling. Seems like we’re back to December in April now.
“ Nevertheless, we should get an order in June, and so possibly a trial starting in late August?”
OK, if they rule in June that he is “immune” without limitation for “official acts” (that asserted Article II “Outer Perimeter“ seanceTextualism thingy), does the case continue, with the trial focus then being on whether his actions culminating in J6 were “Official?”
I’ve grown more and more disillusioned as these cases have dragged on, but this is the nadir. Our court system is useless when it counts.
IANAL, so can someone explain why the courts are granting a total of over 2 months before oral arguments are heard? They just did this at the appeals court. Are their arguments going to be drastically different in front of SCOTUS? I find it hard to have faith in this process when it so frequently and repeatedly fails to rise to its challenges.
Looking forward to Cannon rescheduling the documents trial for August, thereby kicking this trial to 2025. Of course, President Trump will nix it anyway so there’s that.
Cannon is thus forced to kick the can, but not Merchan, eh?
The answer to your question was posted earlier in the thread
Hmm, so this decides only if the President is immune for “official acts”! It does not approach the question of whether the Georgia phone call, the fake electors conspiracy or Jan 6th activities are actually official acts? They seem to be taking a long time to decide a limited portion of the actual question that needs to be addressed. Did Jack Smith limit his question to this same extent? Do all of the cases now hinge on “what is an official Presidential act”?
“limited to the following question: Whether 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.”
Hi Bittersweet!!
Yes, since the SC narrowed the matter to one focused question, there seems to be amble opportunity for more delays based on: Who decides if the Georgia phone call or any other act by Trump during (or after?) his term is an “official act”? I would think that no act post-term can be an “official act”, so Smith should be clear, yes?
IMHO, the question is phrased narrowly because immunity for post-presidential acts, or immunity for acts during tenure that were not official acts, are not close questions. At oral argument, we’ll see if I’m right.
What do you base that on? Narrowing of arguments is not a sign of delay. Normally quite the opposite.
It’s not that the SC narrowing the argument is a “sign of delay”, but that is may result in further delay. If the SC decides that there is no immunity for “official acts”, then it’s done. But if the court decides that there is (some?) immunity for “official acts”, but doesn’t determine “the outer perimeter of official acts”, then . . . well, you know, more delay.
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Sorry. I had forgotten and not made a note. I have now and I’ll use “grossman” from now on.
I was wondering if either Jack Smith or Trump had used the language in their briefs that the Court used in its order. Otherwise, the question does seem inartful.
“Sub-optimal” was restrained.
Two further months delay before oral argument? Normally quick, but it seems like a long time, in light of the issues and the diligent and articulate opinions written by the district and appellate courts. Those decisions merited denial of cert.
Five justices must have agreed to a stay and to accept cert. Does Chief Justice Roberts want to write an opinion for the whole country and not just the DC Circuit? Are originalists Thomas and Alito writing their dissents with quill pens?
Will the Court decide the actually broad question it asks counsel to address? Will it decide the narrower question of whether the acts Trump is alleged to have committed are or are not within the outer perimeter of official acts of a president? Or does the majority intend to elicit repeated rounds of appeals, deferring a definitive decision until after the election, when the majority might hope to declare the case moot, owing to Trump’s return to office?
earl, how could a majority of *SCOTUS* elicit “repeated rounds of appeals”? You can’t appeal a Supreme Court decision. What am I missing?
SCOTUS could rule on some minor point, send it back to Chutkin, Trump appeals on some other point, and that other point goes up on appeal.
Not saying this is likely, as SCOTUS seems to have crafted a very narrow question for the two sides to argue over. But that’s how you get multiple appeals on a single case.
DC Circuit helped immensely in that regard.
Peterr’s right. The Court can issue a tight, definitive decision, that leaves no room for interim appeals before the trial court’s judgment. Or it can leave holes in their decision that beg for refinement, and invite Trump to make interim appeals during his trial.
I disagree on how narrow the Court tailored its question. It’s asking a universal, rather than the narrower question decided by the lower courts: is Trump immune from criminal liability for the conduct he’s alleged to have committed while president.
This is probably super ignorant, and the phrasing of the question they say they are considering is maybe confusing me, but why are they ruling on something that hasn’t happened yet?
Why don’t they wait until the crimes aren’t alleged and then decide?
Are they ruling on if he’s never liable for any acts, or he’s liable depending on what the act is? Because if it’s depending on what act it is, shouldn’t they wait to see if a jury says he really did the act before deciding if he’s not liable for it?
Was this or that charge an official act?
Quoting EoH above:
“Will it decide the narrower question of whether the acts Trump is alleged to have committed are or are not within the outer perimeter of official acts of a president?”
Thank you for putting my confusion into words. Since this is an appeal before the trial, what acts would SCOTUS even be looking at? Or maybe that isn’t what SCOTUS is doing at all. It seems way abstract. So, I dunno, I dunno.
So grateful this blog exists. I depend on all of you here, know that!
As I said below – and our resident AZ litigator can chime in any time – at this stage of the proceedings, the Court would normally assume that the allegations in the indictment are true, for purposes of analyzing Trump’s immunity claim. In other words, assuming Trump did all that the prosecution has alleged, would it be constitutional to prosecute him after he left office for those crimes?
Ah, thank you! That clarifies things a bit.
Now I remember posts here explaining the DC circuit’s ruling assumed the allegations in the J6 indictment were fact as a base for their arguments against immunity.
I do not hold the majority of SCOTUS in high esteem. Trust in their judgments is most certainly no longer a given.
Facts are important and I’m learning that the intelligent questions and knowledgeable folks here who answer are trustworthy. That’s a gift.
How do you suppose they are going to word it so that Republican presidents are immune but Democratic presidents are not? If Scalia were alive he’d find a way. Something like a “ruling only covers present circumstances.”
Biden will be 86 at the end of his second term. Whether he’s immune or not seems irrelevant if it takes 4+ years for the system to hold him accountable and for the details to become public knowledge.
I would not be surprised if he ends up struggling toward election day, that he turns his fire on his pets for dragging out the process so long, and for overturning Roe and hurting his numbers.
Trump and his knuckle draggers won’t care that he is responsible for the delays. They’ll want a target, and his stooges on the Supreme Court will be convenient ones.
And quite frankly if Trump wins, he’ll pack the Supreme Court with even bigger stooges, and either make this batch of conservatives irrelevant or force them out altogether.
Too many people think Trump cuts deals and honors bargains. If he wants some 28 year old lackey and decides to kick Thomas to the curb, he’ll make it happen.
Why would anyone think Trump honors any deal.
He does when he thinks he has less power in the deal.
Like the contract he signed with the CNP in 2016 where he agreed to take Pence as his VP and nominate their picks for judges and SCOTUS, and in return they agreed to go all out to get him elected.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2021/10/25/god-trump-closed-door-world-council-national-policy
He kept his end because he thought they could throw him out of office if he didn’t (impeach/25th).
But now he knows he has all the power except in some of the courts. So maybe the rich folk puppeting the rw justices have worked another deal using the only power they have left: they shield Trump as long as he commits to nominating their picks if he cheats his way into office again in 2024.
This is the price for J. Chutkan and J. Henderson deciding big picture Article II questions largely, if not wholly, untethered to the allegations of the indictment.
Although done is done, I continue to find it unlikely that there are five votes to find Trump immune based on what is conduct unrelated to any official acts or responsibilities.
As to when they will rule, who knows.
If there’s anything I’ve learned about the Roberts Court it’s that its decisions are wholly unpredictable, and that seemed true well before Beer Bong, Crazy Eyes, and Let-Truckers-Freeze-to-Death were nominated by Trump.
You lack the understanding of the rules of interpretation of the new Roberts Court. The only court that can determine whether an act is “within the outer perimeter of official acts” is the Supreme Court using originalist dogmatic divination. Trump’s acts will be within the perimeter and Biden’s of course will not be…. Stare Decisis and consistency are both principals below true originalist intent.
Mike Luttig is saying on MSNBC that no way will SCOTUS issue a decision before July 1.
Mary McCord and others point to the phrasing of the question. My semiotician brain heads that way* naturally, but I wonder what the professionals here think about schedule possibilities. (As well as alternative deconstructions of the question!)
* For example: “alleged* is doing some heavy lifting, IMO. The passive construction leaves it hanging out there in detached mist, as if allegations just came out of nowhere and had no substance–because the syntax grants them no agency.
No, “alleged” is doing very ordinary lifting. The phrase “criminal prosecution for conduct alleged to involve . . .” is how one would phrase it for any case involving a pre-trial appeal. The prosecution alleges criminal behavior, but until a judge/jury says “yes, it is criminal” it remains simply an allegation in the eyes of the court.
Alleged is used in a routine construction. But that doesn’t mean this Court’s majority is using it in a routine way.
I agree with Luttig that this is an indirect way to delay at least the Jan 6th and Florida documents cases. Trump is obtuse, but even Habba won’t miss that the Court is inviting Trump to add an immunity defense to all his criminal trials. The circumstances in those cases are not identical, but they would still be up in the air until after the Court decides this appeal.
Even that assumes the Court’s decision is complete enough for the district court to proceed to trial and judgment, with no obvious avenue for further appeals until afterwards. The Court could decide too little, and leave open avenues of appeal that Trump would use to further delay judgment.
It’s always a bit of Kremlinology, but oral argument – two months away – will tell a lot about how the Court intends to use or abuse its appellate authority.
I don’t see how the SCOTUS question here gives Cannon any cover. The question being addressed is specifically whether there’s presidential criminal immunity for official acts. There is no argument that the documents charges involve official acts, because the charged activity occurred after Trump’s presidency had ended.
That’s true. But dollars to donuts Cannon will delay proceedings pending the Supreme Court’s decision in the Jan 6th case.
I listen to a lot of oral arguments nowadays; I’m retired, it’s easy, and it’s a nice hobby for a lawyer. I will definitely be marking my calendar for this one.
The particular wording of the question —
Whether 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.
— sparks intrigue.
Both as to the use of ‘former President’ (which was absolutely central to Chutkan’s intitial ruling) and “conduct alleged to involve official acts” which does not really track with the allegations in the indictment.
Trump has alleged that the charged conduct involves official acts.
True
But at this stage it’s what the indictment alleges is the basis for analysis as per both lower court rulings.
So this creates an impression the question is designed to give Trump some wiggle room, at least for the purposes of argument.
Yes, normally, at this stage of proceedings, the court would have to assume that the allegations are true for purposes of analyzing the applicable law.
SteveBev, This is what hung me up on “alleged.” That verb could have bivalent agents. Jack Smith’s indictment alleges criminal violations, whereas Trump alleges that these were official acts and thus (by his reasoning) immune.
Given the structure of the question, it seems to me to lean toward Trump’s argument. Lisa Rubin articulated this exact point last night more clearly than I have.
So my uneducated take is that SC is not deciding the question, as claimed by Trump, that a President is immune with respect anything he/she might do. They are only deciding if immunity applies specifically to the acts alleged here by Jack Smith. Yes/No ?
No. The opposite.
The DC Circuit held that it didn’t need to reach the constitutional question the Court posed. It held that Trump’s claim could be decided against him on the narrower basis that all the charged conduct was outside the scope of his office and therefore subject to no legitimate claim of presidential immunity.
Contra Peterr, I think the Court has expanded that question to the larger one of has a president any immunity from prosecution for official acts committed while president. It’s hard to craft a decision or a formula that deals with all possible circumstances, which means their decision may have holes that invite, rather than preclude, further litigation.
A possible view is that
there are some in SCOTUS who are happy to run out the clock and have been digging in their heels,
a group who wanted to dispose of the matter quickly, and narrowly,
and a middle group for whom the Court setting a rule is the most important consideration, and it less clear whether they are inclined to consider the matter broadly or narrowly.
So a compromise was reached on the question, to get the case moving, and the breadth of the question is a sop to the most pro-Trump, but doesn’t necessarily reflect where the majority really are.
Obviously only time will tell, and the heel draggers have significantly achieved their goal.
In setting its question, the Supreme Court impliedly rejects the DC Circuit’s decision, because it purports to seek an answer to a completely different question than the DCC answered.
The DCC held, as a matter of law, that Trump’s conduct, related to the Jan 6th insurrection and coup, fell outside of the scope of official presidential acts – even their outer perimeter – and that he could not be immune to prosecution for them.
The Supreme Court’s question, however, assumes that Trump’s alleged acts were within the scope of a president’s official conduct. It uses such an abstract framing that any answer the Court gives is unlikely to be definitive, meaning it would invite further litigation and delay.
earl, You resolve a lot of the murkiness created by the question’s wording here, but I would argue (submitting this long thread as evidence) that the question’s fundamental murk remains.
I am eager to see how Smith’s brief responds to this. The whole thing gives me a queasier feeling the longer I think about it. It’s not like you’re sitting on SCOTUS to help out there.
Her has yet to prove that.
I hope this means full speed ahead for the New York hush money fraud trial now there there are no federal cases scheduled to get in NY’s way. Fingers crossed…
I hope you’re right. But if I were Trump’s lawyers, I would immediately petition for a stay of the New York trial, since he “allegedly” has immunity there, too, and the Supremacy Clause probably implies state immunity if there is federal immunity. My guess is that the NY courts would tell them to pound sand. It then goes to the Supremes …
The NY trial involves events that all occurred before he became President. He doesn’t allegedly have immunity there.
Indictment here : https://www.manhattanda.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Donald-J.-Trump-Indictment.pdf
Many of the dates in the counts relate to acts in 2017 when the business records were allegedly falsified.
The issue about immunity would be whether the conduct is private.
Thanks for the correction / additional info.
No problem. It isn’t easy to recall the details of each of the cases. We all rely on each other to grapple with this stuff.
Two NY trials are already over and as to the third…
…its charges concern illegal activities conducted before he was president, and the SCOTUS question is limited to activities conducted while president.
Eh.
It’s is (to my understanding) the least impactful of all the prosecutions in terms of the severity of the charges and the risk of consequences. It will be good to have it brought to a conclusion but I think it’s a pretty fair bet that if the other cases were to move forward sooner that this one would have no problem getting out of the way.
Yes, it is pretty much extrapolated garbage. And relies on one off theories of charge enhancement.
I always thought the only value of Bragg’s prosecution was as a taboo-breaker. It’s ridiculously overcharged using a hinky enhancement argument, as you say, and the number of separate counts is absurd.
If the enhancements stick and he’s convicted, the convictions pile quite a few points onto future sentencing guidelines, as I understand it. It’s not good.
Assume the trial starts in late July. Assume further that Trump agrees to debate Biden . The debate is to occur on Oct. 15. Trump asks for a 5 trial day adjournment to prepare for and attend at the debate. Should the trial judge grant a 5 day suspension of the trial? Unless SCOTUS decides quickly , there is a real chance that there is no jury verdict on Trump/jan.6 before Election Day. Jack Smith says 3 month trial. Unforeseen delays are endemic to the conduct of trials.
They should have either taken this up when Jack Smith asked, 3 months ago, or adopted the DC Appeals ruling and refused cert.
This is bullshit.
IANAL
Luttig, Katyal and Weissman have raised the issue that Chutkan has previously stated that an additional 81 days of pre-trial are required after the stay is removed.
If SCOTUS does not rule until June, plus 10 weeks before the trial can start, there may be no trial before the election.
They think Chutkin could modify that requirement, or Jack Smith could streamline the charges.
Luttig is very critical of this decision and timeline.
Fast for the court is Bush V Gore. Given the nature of the alleged crime, this is not fast.
Lol, “Luttig, Katyal and Weissman”? You bite off on the TV lawyer bullshit, do you?
Katyal has argued many cases before the SC.
Luttig was on a short list to actually be a SC justice.
Make your best case for me to believe your takes rather than theirs.
[Welcome back to emptywheel. SECOND REQUEST: Please use the same username and email address each time you comment so that community members get to know you. You made 15 comments in 2022 as “Garrett Everhardt” to which the username has been changed on this comment, and one comment in January which also required moderator assistance. Please make a note of this as “ForgotMyScreenNameAgain.” This kind of behavior requires manual intervention by human volunteer moderators; future coding changes to the comment system will not permit comments like this one to clear for publication. /~Rayne]
Long live KO
Long live Joy Reid
The Justices have put a dagger into “With all deliberate speed”
There is a motive to their madness
I don’t think there is any chance for Trump to win on the merits. I still find it disturbing that SCOTUS accepted cert. That means that there are four justices who are willing to pretend that they need to add to what the appeals court said. Pretend that they can’t quite make up their minds about whether or not we’ve been living in an autocracy all this time and no one else noticed.
Let’s be clear that SCOTUS, as an institution, is lending credence to Trump’s legal gibberish.
Once more, this is a reminder that no one is coming to save us for this tin horn wannabe dictator. It’s up to us. The best option we have is the ballot box. But remember, if you care about democracy, it doesn’t stop there. Win or lose in November, the fascists aren’t going to quit. We can’t either.
All true.
Marcy reminded Twitter* readers tonight of something she’s mentioned before:
“The good news is that SCOTUS will probably rule on whether Biden has absolute immunity in time for him to order SEAL Team 6 to take him out, as Trump’s lawyer said Biden could do.”
(*Or Nitter, in my case (thanks to someone who cited it here last year), since I don’t have a Twitter account and timelines are an unreadable jumble if you don’t. But I won’t have that option for much longer, it seems. The original Nitter went down in January, and the remaining usable alternate instances grow fewer each day.)
That scenario also entailed taking out a sufficient number of senate opponents to ensure no conviction in any impeachment trial afterwards, too. Just so we have the full picture of the absurdity Trump’s lawyers posited to the DC Circuit.
Indeed. And thus, I suspect, the Supreme Court will rule against immunity if for no other reason because they don’t want to effectively authorize a President to do this to them. There’s a cliched phrase that says “the Constitution is not a suicide pact.” Handing a President the ability to kill you without consequences makes that phrase very literal!
Long time lurker, first time commenter.
The framing of the question is interesting in that it leaves in place the (obviously correct) holding from the Court of Appeals that presidents do not enjoy unlimited criminal immunity, nor do they have immunity for acts that are not official.
The acts in the FL case are decidedly post-presidential and not official. This actually provides Cannon with another avenue to delay. She is not bound by a Court of Appeals opinion from another circuit. And since SCOTUS is not deciding whether former presidents are immune from prosecution for unofficial acts (and post-presidency acts), all Cannon has to do is rule otherwise. That will drag the documents case out well past the election.
That is, of course, unless SCOTUS says, “We only granted cert on the official acts question because the Court of Appeals’ conclusion on the rest of the issues is correct.”
The cynic in me says this is a conservative SCOTUS crafting the most possible avenues for delay as possible. And since 2016, the cynic in me has almost always been correct.
Honestly, there wasn’t much chance Cannon would bring it to trial prior to the election before this development. IMHO
In the Cannon case, his attorneys are now claiming that he ‘transformed’ the classified documents into personal documents while still President. Taking personal documents home and keeping them is permitted. So they have linked the documents case to his official position – and thus the immunity question will come up there, too. Yes? IANAL…
They are claiming declassifying magically transforms them into his personal diary. It doesn’t. It just makes them ordinary Presidential records that are covered under the Presidential Records Act or Federal Records Act. Of course they ignore the fact that the documents he’s being charged with illegally retaining haven’t been declassified in the first place.
They also ignore that those documents will still clearly be “National Defense Information” which does not depend on whether or not they are classified. Trump is charged with refusing to return NDI, not “classified documents”.
They tend to ignore a lot of things. Much like their client.
The fact that Trump extended his absolute immunity claims to the Florida case, in preposterously tortured fashion, may have helped nudge SCOTUS into granting cert.
He’s getting all the justice money can buy. If only it were *his* money, and not funds from his easily gulled followers.
Now that “expedited” review on immunity has been granted, I’m betting that the other shoe (reversal of Colorado Supreme Court) drops by COB Friday.
Meanwhile, an Illinois judge kicked Trump off the ballot because insurrectionist.
Rayne. Just curious, how long will my comments be held up in moderation?
[Moderator’s note: I do not see a comment from you in Pending waiting moderation nor in Trash. Asking questions like this does not help you as you’re cluttering the thread. /~Rayne]
I think the answer to Vladeck’s conundrum on why 2 weeks to decide this is simple: there were four votes for cert, but not necessarily 5 for a stay. And Jack Smith gave them an out by asking for cert.
Unfortunately, the 4 vs 5 votes doesn’t work like that here. Because this is interlocutory you *have* to stay the proceedings. Not doing so would risk the case going to trial before the merits of immunity were decided, which was the whole point of an interlocutory appeal anyway (and the DC circuit very clearly said this when they decided they had jurisdiction).
So if you moot the application of a stay by saying this is a cert petition instead, now 4 votes gets you there. Alito and Thomas were certainly 2. Guessing Gorsuch was 3. And one of Kavanaugh, Barrett or Roberts was 4. Probably Kavanaugh.
The delay was in trying to get the 5th. If they had 5, they might not even have expedited it Since I think they didn’t, the compromise was say this is cert, administratively stay the mandate under expedited review, and then decide this very narrow question. That moots the need for 5 votes for emergency stay.
Not to say “I told you so” but this was the exact scenario I predicted. And the icing for Roberts was probably the FL motion and the possibility of a circuit split.
If Smith is smart he will ask Cannon to stay the decision on the immunity motion pending the SCOTUS action, but proceed with CIPA litigation and all other pretrial motions in normal course as those will not be affected by the SCOTUS decision.
That could be a silver lining here as he might be able to slog through most of the CIPA process during this delay.
Thanks for that as I was confused by the 4 vs. 5 for a stay thing.
I hear a lot of commentators bringing up the two month prior to election blackout period, but I could swear I heard Garland respond to a reporter’s recent question about this that the period only applied to new cases, not ongoing ones.
Did I misunderstand this, and the commentators are correct, that all the cases will stop in their tracks September 5th?
IANAL but … my understanding is that the two months stand down of overt actions against political figures leading into election is a DoJ policy that binds DoJ employees, but for cases already brought to court, the scheduling of progress is the responsibility of presiding judges and not subject to any DoJ rule.
Trump’s exposure in his current criminal cases is all known to the GOP, so they don’t really have grounds to complain if his candidacy is affected by progression of these cases. But of course that won’t stop Trump and all his minions howling about how unfair it all is if that happens.
At this stage, I believe those who will vote for Trump are already on his side regardless of whatever is going on in the legal process. Democrats need to do the work to make sure the 47th President doesn’t take office until 2029. [I can’t help – I’m a foreigner.]
In general terms I agree with what you say, except that you may be omitting one consideration (or set of considerations).
Despite what we all believe that there is already sufficient publicly available information to form (compel) the view Trump attempted an unconstitutional coup, there still appear to be a cohort of Republican supporters/voters whose willingness to accept that and vote accordingly is contingent on a trial and conviction – polling seems to show this consistently.
This could be an important component of the electorate.
FWIW their timidity in coming to the (correct) conclusion matches the timidity of political and other leaders, who have shown that they know, but do not want to be seen to be the ones whose actions will effectuate the consequences, and leave it up to others or fate to bring the consequences about : eg Republican Senators, the Supreme Court each have their ‘institutional reasons’ for abdicating their responsibility.
And thus the drift towards affording Trump his wonted impunity, by those who are far from being true believers, but dither equivocate and look away.
People lie to pollsters.
Those who support Trump will likely not change their minds even if he is convicted. They are just saying that to pretend to the pollster (or themselves) that they are reasonable people, and not selfish assholes willing to risk destroying democracy in order to “own the libs”.
Americans who care about their democracy and about America’s place in the world, have no choice but to do the hard work to defeat Trump at the ballot box.
I wholeheartedly agree with your final point.
But accountability to law, particularly of high state officials caught in acts of gross malfeasance against that democracy is an important value to democratic society, independent of elections.
The extent to which a conviction may move the needle on a miscreant candidate’s popularity and electability is open to argument, but I choose to hope that it would.
I also think that using electioneering for the highest office as a means to obstruct such accountability, and a pathway to impunity, is a dangerous abuse of democratic processes and American democracy is both weakened and shamed by the fact that it is occurring in plain sight.
So if SCOTUS rules that a President is immune for “official acts” does the case go back to district court to decide whether or not the acts in question were “official acts?”
IANAL, but to even grant cert. to this motion is ludicrous, and seems like a gigantic waste of time for the Supreme Court of the land to rule on such a preposterous assertion. In my mind, granting this was either an extraConstitutional attempt by the conservatives on the court to delay accountability for Trump or the moderate Roberts leaning way over to be “fair” to Trump, thereby creating a two-tiered system of justice, which the Right routinely scorns.
Chill – Bullshit
Rocket Docket for Supreme Court – Bullshit and more bullshit
The motive in this case is delay.
Anyone who doubts the motive is swinging for the fences and putting up a huge K
US v. Nixon reached the court July 8, 1974. Rehnquist recused due to prior role in the Nixon administration, we can be sure that Thomas will not have that kind of integrity. July 24, 1974 rule unanimous.
December 8, 2000 Bush v. Gore reached the SC, Released there 5-4 decision on December 12, 2000. Ranking as one of the worst SC rulings in history. In my opinion.
By any stretch this SC taking the former guys immunity claims in an “expedited” schedule is at best a glacial pace in comparison. One could easily infer they are delaying the process in his favor. I believe it took 4 justices to accept the case, 3 are in the bag for trump, 3 more are almost in the bag. Just another nail in the SC integrity of being blatantly partisan. The arc of manipulated history to allow the former guy to select 3 justices is appalling. May Mitch McConnell burn in his afterlife.
During Brett Kavanaugh’s Senate Confirmation Hearing for SCOTUS, he whined and cried that the Clintons had conspired to prevent him from being confirmed. He was practicing the use of “Whataboutism,” a tactic Communist governments and dictators have used since the Russian Communist Revolution.
Today, Kavanaugh, Alito, Thomas and Gorsuch regularly invoke Putin’s “Whataboutism” as a defense for their questions and rulings. They whine and howl all the time when protecting their respective “pet” issues and beliefs. What about this; what about that; what about him; what about her; what about them.
Yesterday’s SCOTUS decision, including their sole question to the parties, reeks of “Whataboutism”—this time about whether Obama was immune from approving lethal military drone strikes during his presidency. That’s one issue Trump’s attorneys raised in their DC Appeals Court Argument.
This SCOTUS will ultimately rule that Trump does have immunity from prosecution, just like Obama had when he was president. Trump won’t have to face any criminal trials.
And they will use much of Scalia’s written opinion in the Bush vs. Gore ruling to support their ruling, including insisting it is only applicable to Trump and his cases.
So, reread Scalia’s Bush vs Gore majority ruling and be prepared to see it used by this SCOTUS to give Trump the immunity claim he covets.
This seems a very simple explanation for how this SCOTUS, and the Republicans in general and the MSM are dealing with obvious faults of the perpetrators.
Just repeat after them — “But someone else did something somewhat similar in some past time.” Therefore it is excused or at least pushed away.
Given the 11th Circuit Appeals Court’s unanimous ruling should not have SCOTUS declined cert, and only then taken the case based on the subsequent trial facts & legal findings by that particular judge?
If you’re referring to the Jan 6th case, it was the DC Circuit, not the 11th.
Yup – victim of my many tabs.
The Supreme Court has joined the insurrection, and has created a constitutional crisis.
Now the only way to get justice is to defeat the Republican Party at all levels in the election.
Only then will there be an opportunity to remove these seditious justices from the bench.
If instead, the Republicans somehow still gain power, and start implementing the plan that they have published, then they will get their civil war. And Putin will get what he wants.
The Republican Party is a criminal organization masquerading as a political party, and they are for sale to our adversaries.
No Republican should be regarded as a legitimate political opponent. They are seditious traitors, and their leaders are criminals who belong in jail, not holding the country hostage.