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Donald Trump’s petition to the Supreme Court over his claim of blanket presidential immunity begins with a quote from Yogi Berra.
“This application is yet another déjà vu,” the former president’s lawyers wrote, despite Special Counsel Jack Smith’s attempt in December to get a nine-judge panel to quickly decide the matter. He pointed out that he had failed.
But another phrase from the esteemed late New York Yankees catcher is that no matter what, President Trump’s endless legal strategy aimed at postponing liquidation until after the November election Delaying is better summed up – “It’s not over until it’s over.”
The former president asked the Supreme Court on Monday to temporarily block a federal appeals court ruling last week that watered down his argument that the president was effectively above the law while in office and was protected from prosecution thereafter. He requested that he intervene.
The audacity of this application is Trumpian.
Essentially, the former president is on trial for trying to overturn the 2020 election, arguing that failing to get his message across in the 2024 election will be unfair to millions of voters. are doing. When the former president tried to block the people’s choice to remove him from office in 2020, he wasn’t so concerned about voters’ rights. Trump’s lawyers argued that despite the president’s unprecedented efforts three years ago to disrupt the cherished tradition of peaceful transfers of power. The real “astonishing violation of precedent and historical norms” is that lower courts have ruled that there is no presidential immunity for official acts. President Trump has maintained that he used his presidential power for the legitimate purpose of uncovering election fraud, but the Constitution states that as a former president, the president has the authority to officially administer elections, to count votes, and to supervise local elections. There are no provisions giving any right or obligation to contact you. He is said to have done this.
The language of President Trump’s court filings can sometimes feel a little flimsy. This stands in contrast in tone and depth to last week’s harshly argued denial of his immunity request by three appeals court judges, which was widely praised by legal scholars. And it reflects the far-reaching and improbable vision of nearly unfettered presidential power that Trump has cultivated during his time in office, and ahead of a term he has vowed to focus on retaliating against his enemies in November’s election. This reflects the fact that he appears to be happy to regain that authority if he wins.
“This brief, this petition for a stay, is pretty weak,” Ty Cobb, former Trump White House general counsel, told CNN’s Erin Burnett on Monday. “I don’t think the Supreme Court would find these arguments persuasive.”
President Trump’s latest request means that the case, one of the most potentially damaging of the four criminal trials awaiting President Trump, will be overturned by the Supreme Court’s actions in the coming days. It comes at a crucial time, as it will likely decide whether the case will go to a jury before it goes to trial. This is not just a matter of demanding accountability for the former president’s efforts to remain in power despite losing the last election to President Joe Biden. And some polls, including this month’s NBC News national poll, show that some convicted felons may not support President Trump when they go to the polls. This could determine the fate of the White House. In what is expected to be a close election, even a small defection from Biden could affect the outcome.
There’s good reason why Trump’s lawyers are running out the clock. Therefore, the move should be evaluated for its political impact as well as its quality of litigation in an election season where President Trump’s legal and electoral strategies have merged.
President Trump has asked the Supreme Court to put the entire case on hold so that he can fully pursue his rights as an appellant, which could include a so-called obituary appeal to all appellate court judges. includes an appeal to an appellate court judge. Proceedings in the High Court can take weeks or months. But it’s not even clear whether the Supreme Court, which last week heard oral arguments in another of Trump’s lawsuits over his removal from the Colorado vote, would even agree to accept Trump’s latest request.
CNN senior legal analyst Ellie Honig said the real-world impact of the new petition is that “Donald Trump will go to trial in Jack Smith’s election case before or after the 2024 election. “It will almost certainly affect whether or not it happens.”
First, the Supreme Court must decide whether to grant a stay, but Honig said the “bigger question is whether the Supreme Court will ultimately adopt this case.” If they don’t file a lawsuit, it will go back to district court, so I think it’s very likely that the case will go to trial this summer. If they take this case up and set it on a schedule closer to the normal schedule, I think it’s likely that the schedule will be pushed back until after the 2024 election. The stakes are that high. ”
Norm Eisen, another CNN legal analyst, said the court will likely grant some kind of injunction, but even if it decides to sue, it could rush the case. “It’s unlikely to be successful in the long term. But for now it’s a delay game,” Eisen said.
But both Mr. Trump and Mr. Smith know that time is running out, as the trial could coincide with the heated presidential election.
Former federal prosecutor Ankush Khardri told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer: “The really precarious situation that Jack Smith and the Justice Department are in is that given the calendar and the political calendar, every day counts at this point. That’s what it means,” he said. “I don’t expect them to condone the whole delaying tactic, at least I hope not, but we’re starting to cut back pretty close here now.”
As is often the case, Trump had a crowded legal process on Monday.
The historic spectacle of a former president requesting unprecedented blanket immunity, which appears to run counter to America’s founding principles of restraining unaccountable executive power, became clear only after his previous appearance in court. became. The former president participated in a closed-door hearing in Florida seeking access to classified documents related to Smith’s hoarding of classified government documents at his resort home. His team and lawyers were negotiating. As with Smith’s Washington case, Trump’s team is seeking a postponement of the trial, currently scheduled for May.
The former president is also scheduled to appear in a Manhattan courtroom Thursday for a hearing regarding hush money paid to adult film actress Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign. The case is currently expected to be the first of President Trump’s four criminal trials to be held in late March after a judge in the federal election case postponed the start of the trial pending the former president’s appeal. There is.
Meanwhile, President Trump is hopeful that Fani Willis, the district attorney who led the Georgia election destruction scandal, could be fired after revelations about her personal relationship with the lead prosecutor. A hearing is scheduled for Thursday after the judge overseeing the case said Willis could be disqualified if she benefited financially from the relationship.
And in a further twist of fate in court this week for President Trump, a New York judge ruled Friday on how much Trump will have to pay over ill-gotten gains related to a civil fraud trial targeting the former president. A verdict is scheduled to be rendered. The Trump Organization and his adult sons. The case puts much of Mr. Trump’s wealth and his ability to do business in New York state at risk.
This staggering list of cases is a burden for any defendant, let alone one running for president, but it alone does not cover the full scope of legal responsibility. But if Trump does not win the 2024 election and is unable to use executive powers to halt his trial or overturn his conviction in the federal case, dark times could be ahead for Trump. is increasing.
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