Donald Trump’s legal strategy of just running out the clock seems to be working. Again. It doesn’t seem that this motherfucker will ever be held to account. Oh sure, he’s got half a billion dollars in judgments and civil fines levied against him, but he’ll be appealing those until he is dead.
Which frankly, can’t come soon enough.
Yesterday, in a one page unsigned order, the Supreme Court agreed to hear Trump’s challenge on whether he can be tried on criminal charges that he conspired to overturn the results of the 2020 election, or whether he is — as he has proposed — absolutely immune from prosecution for things he did while in office.
Btw, if you’re wondering why this challenge doesn’t impact the “hush money” prosecution that Alvin Bragg is leading, it’s because those involve actions Trump took before he was President.
However, both the prosecutions that Jack Smith is leading involve things that Trump did while in office. Those include (1) the January 6th insurrection and (2) the mishandling of classified documents.
Just to review the timeline here:
- Trump was indicted in Aug. 2023 on four counts arising from the January 6, 2021, attacks on the U.S. Capitol;
- U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan originally set a trial date of March 4, 2024, for Trump’s case before Trump filed his appeals, claiming that he had “absolute immunity” from being prosecuted for anything he did while President;
- Jack Smith came to the Supreme Court in December, asking the justices to review that decision without waiting for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to weigh in on Trump’s appeal, but they declined to do so;
- On February 6th, the D.C. Circuit unanimously upheld Chutkan’s decision and rejected Trump’s claims;
- Trump went to the Supreme Court on Feb. 12, seeking to have the D.C. Circuit’s ruling put on hold to give him time to file a petition for review of that decision and, if possible, reconsideration by the full D.C. Circuit;
- Jack Smith urged the justices to allow Trump’s trial to proceed without further delay by denying the request, and in the alternative, to treat Trump’s request to put the D.C. Circuit’s ruling on hold as a petition for review, grant that petition, and fast-track the case for oral argument in March, to resolve the dispute quickly;
- The Court essentially took that second options, and has now scheduled the case to be argued during the week of April 22.
The Supreme Court’s term ends on the last day of June, and Constitutional scholars and legal commentators agree that there is very little chance that the Court will agree with Trump’s arguments. But it keeps the clock running.
They are, frankly, in the words of one legal commentator, “completely absurd.”
Knowing the very pressing timeline and the national implications, the Supreme Court could have (and frankly should have) taken the case directly, not waited for the D.C. Circuit court to decide. By choosing this route, they could hand Jack Smith a complete legal victory and yet hamstring him by delaying the trial of the case until after the November election.
In that scenario it is also possible that Trump gets elected at the beginning of November and then gets convicted before his January 20th 2025 inauguration day. Trump will certainly appeal any conviction, and then, as President, could order the Department of Justice to drop the case and not fight the appeal.
In the meantime we also have the sordid scenario of ongoing hearings into whether Fani Willis should be disqualified in Georgia even though whether she had an affair with her lead prosecutor has nothing to do with Trump’s guilt or innocence.
Jesus fucking Christ.
At this point, I don’t even think multiple convictions for the 91 felonies would make a dent in the voting preferences of most Americans.