The US supreme court on Friday rejected a request by the special counsel to expeditiously decide whether Donald Trump has immunity from federal prosecution over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, before a lower appeals court issued its own judgment.
The one sentence denial means the case is returned to the US court of appeals for the District of Columbia circuit, where a three-judge panel is scheduled to hear oral arguments in January, and the case against Trump remains frozen pending the outcome of the appeal.
In declining to leapfrog the lower court and fast-track the appeal, the supreme court handed a crucial and potentially far-reaching victory to Trump as he seeks to delay as much as possible his trial, currently scheduled for next March in federal district court in Washington.
The decision almost certainly slows down Trump’s federal election interference case. Even if the DC circuit rules against Trump quickly, the former president can first ask the full appeals court to rehear the case, and then has 90 days to lodge a final appeal to the supreme court.
Trump was indicted in June by the special counsel Jack Smith for conspiring to impede the peaceful transfer of power, but sought to have the charges thrown out by contending he could not be prosecuted for actions he undertook as president that were related to his official duties.
The filing contended that all of Trump’s attempts to reverse his 2020 election defeat in the indictment, ranging from pressuring his vice-president, Mike Pence, to stop the congressional certification to organizing fake slates of electors, were in his capacity as president and therefore protected.
At the heart of the Trump legal team’s filing was the extraordinary contention that not only was Trump entitled to absolute presidential immunity, but that the immunity applied regardless of Trump’s intent in engaging in the conduct described in the indictment.
This month, his motion was rejected by the presiding US district judge Tanya Chutkan. That set the stage for Trump, who had always expected the motion to fail, to lodge an appeal that would stay the case while the DC circuit considered the matter.
Obtaining the stay was always part of Trump’s strategy – he is seeking delay because if he wins re-election before the trial occurs, he could arrange to have the charges dismissed – and his lawyers were counting on a lengthy appeals process that would buy the time.
The strategy, according to people close to Trump’s legal team, involved Trump going to the supreme court and securing additional weeks or months of delay – only after weeks of delay before the DC circuit.
But prosecutors attempted to preempt Trump’s ploy by asking the supreme court to bypass the DC circuit and resolve the immunity question directly. In court filings, the special counsel suggested keeping the March trial date was in the public interest.
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The request from prosecutors that the nation’s highest court rule on a case before judgment by an appeals court – and force Trump to contend with the Supreme Court plank of his delay strategy months earlier than he anticipated – was unusual but underscored the gravity of the moment.
On Friday, the court essentially sided with Trump, who had argued the day before for the special counsel’s petition to be denied, arguing on procedural grounds that prosecutors had no basis to appeal a trial court ruling that was favorable to them and where the government had not suffered any harm.
The denial, appellate experts said, underscored the peril of allowing trial prosecutors to help frame issues before the supreme court, instead of having the solicitor general’s office – which normally argues on behalf of the government – refine arguments to the sensibilities of the justices.
The emergency petition on the Trump immunity question did not involve the solicitor general’s office. Although the filing was signed by former deputy solicitor general Michael Dreeben, it also included the special counsel himself and two of his deputies, JP Cooley and James Pearce.
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
