Supreme Court Rules Against Special Counsel, Will Not Expedite Trump Immunity Clash
The Supreme Court's new docket just dropped, notably without expedited consideration of Trump's claim of presidential immunity in his 2020 election interference case - a critical question which will determine whether he can be put on trial for trying to overturn the results of the last presidential election.
BREAKING: Supreme Court docket reflects a *denial* of Jack Smith's request for expedited consideration of Trump's immunity appeal. https://t.co/eOKZyWnyhj pic.twitter.com/daCuXjOmkR
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) December 22, 2023
The one-sentence order, with no noted dissents, means that a federal appeals court in Washington will be the first to review a district judge's ruling earlier this month which rejected Trump's claim of immunity - with arguments scheduled to begin Jan. 9.
The move (or lack thereof) comes eight days after the USSC agreed to consider whether to expedite consideration of Special Counsel Jack Smith's petition to short-circuit the appeals court and immediately weigh in on Trump's claim of presidential immunity to try and have the case tossed.Smith argued that public interest required intervention now so that his well-timed case against the former president could proceed as scheduled 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 the abnormally fast review. "And not just any actions: alleged acts to perpetuate himself in power by frustrating the constitutionally prescribed process for certifying the lawful winner of an election."
The Supreme Court has denied Special Counsel Smith's request for an expedited review of the case against Trump.
— Techno Fog (@Techno_Fog) December 22, 2023
There won't be a trial in DC before the 2024 election.
No mistake - this is a big loss for the Special Counsel. pic.twitter.com/nCNiiJe5lG
Trump's attorneys, on the other hand, argued that the case was too important to be rushed, and that Smith was doing the bidding of Joe Biden's reelection campaign - saying that the special counsel "confuses the ‘public interest’ with the manifest 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 Administration."
"The combination of an almost three-year wait to bring this case and the Special Counsel’s current demand for extraordinary expedition, supported by the vaguest of justifications, creates a compelling inference of partisan motivation," Trump lawyer D. John Sauer wrote.
The move comes after Trump appealed an appeals court judge's rejection of that argument.
As The Reactionary noted last week;
The setting of Trump’s DC trial for the spring of 2024 – conveniently scheduled one day before the Super Tuesday primaries – was undoubtedly the result of a shared interest between the Special Counsel and the presiding judge, Tanya Chutkan: to convict Donald Trump before the 2024 election. Moreover, given the 11+ 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 accelerated trial date was a violation of Trump’s Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel, which includes the opportunity to prepare for trial.
The Special Counsel’s DC case against Trump comprises novel legal theories that have never been tried in American courts, most notably whether Presidential challenges to an election can be criminalized under the United States code. The attorneys for Trump have filed lengthy and well thought-out motions, reasoning that the Constitution and the doctrine of presidential immunity required dismissal of this criminal case. Judge Chutkan denied each one in her desire for a quick trial.
This is the last thing Smith wanted...