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      US tells Israel credible aid plan needed before any military operation in Gaza and urges Hamas to accept ceasefire deal – live

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      A temporary ceasefire is essential to a deal to release more of the hostages still held by Hamas since they were snatched during the attack by the Islamist group that controls Gaza on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, according to the White House.This news is still emerging over the wires and we’ll bring you details as they unfold. The White House just said there will be additional air drops of US aid over Gaza, which is besieged by Israel and where the north of the territory is almost cut off from aid entirely.Reuters is reporting that the White House stated that the US calls on Hamas to accept terms of a ceasefire and hostage release deal now. More as we get it.An updated summary of the day’s key news from myself and my colleagues.The big politics news: The supreme court overturned a Colorado ruling that barred Donald Trump from the state’s ballot for his involvement in the January 6 insurrection, issuing a decision that judges nationwide will likely cite to allow him to compete in the remaining Republican primaries, and the November general election. However, the court’s three liberal justices and one conservative worried that the authors of the majority opinion went further than necessary, though for different reasons. In remarks from his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, Trump thanked the court for their ruling, while also encouraging them to find him immune from prosecution for his attempts to overturn the 2020 election. That matter has yet to be decided.Here’s what else happened today:
      The US called on Hamas to accept the terms of a temporary ceasefire and hostage release deal currently being negotiated in Cairo. Israel has “provisionally accepted a six-week phased hostage and ceasefire deal,” per reports.
      A day after she called for an “immediate ceasefire,” vice president Kamala Harris had a closed-door meeting with Benny Gantz, a member of Israel’s war cabinet member and prominent centrist rival of right-wing prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The White House said in a statement they “discussed the situation in Rafah and the need for a credible and implementable humanitarian plan prior to contemplating any major military operation there given the risks to civilians.”
      As half a million Palestinians are facing starvation in what aid workers call an “all man-made” famine in Gaza, the US state department said on Monday it supported the United Nations doing a review into an aid-related incident in Gaza last week where dozens of people were killed.
      Allen Weisselberg, Trump’s former finance chief, pleaded guilty to perjury in New York City, in a deal that will send the 76-year-old to jail but will not force him to testify against the Trump family, his employers for half a century.
      Trump’s allies in Congress, including House speaker Mike Johnson and potential vice-presidential pick Elise Stefanik were also pleased with the supreme court’s ruling. But the justices did not absolve Trump of the charge that he was involved in an insurrection, noted Neal Katyal, who used to argued before the supreme court on behalf of Barack Obama.
      The White House has released a statement of what vice president Kamala Harris discussed in her closed-door meeting with Benny Gantz, a member of Israel’s war cabinet and a rival of right-wing prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.The key news line: “The vice-president and Minister Gantz discussed the situation in Rafah and the need for a credible and implementable humanitarian plan prior to contemplating any major military operation there given the risks to civilians.“She urged Israel to take additional measures in cooperation with the United States and international partners to increase the flow of humanitarian assistance into Gaza and ensure its safe distribution to those in need.”Relatedly, the US state department on Monday said it supports the United Nations doing a review into an aid-related incident in Gaza last week where dozens of people were killed, Reuters reported.‘Spending his golden years in jail:’ analysis on Trump finance chief’s plea deal This is Lois Beckett, picking up our live politics coverage from our west coast bureau in Los Angeles.Earlier today, the former chief financial officers of the Trump Organization, Allen Weisselberg, made a deal with prosecutors to plead guilty to perjury charges related to his testimony in Trump’s recent civil fraud trial.Norm Eisen of the Defend Democracy Project argued that Weisselberg’s guilty plea “further strengthens the 2016 campaign corruption and coverup criminal case being brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg” and that “his plea and the associated jail time is a stark reminder to those witnesses in Trump’s orbit of the price for lying in his service” and would likely serve “as a deterrent to other Trump allies who will take the stand during the DA’s case against him.’Jake Offenhartz and Michael R. Sisak of the Associated Press emphasized a different aspect of the plea deal in their reporting, noting that the deal sends Weisselberg, who is 76, “back to jail, but does not require that he testify at Trump’s hush-money criminal trial.”They write:
      In pleading guilty, Weisselberg found himself caught again between the law and his loyalty to Trump, whose family employed him for nearly 50 years and sent him into retirement with a $2 million severance. His plea to perjury is further evidence that, rather than testify truthfully in a way that might harm his old boss, he was willing to again spend a chunk of his golden years in jail.
      Donald Trump’s speech at Mar-a-Lago after the supreme court’s ruling this morning allowing him to stay on the ballot was nothing more than “unhinged, confused ramblings focused only on himself”, in the words of Joe Biden’s re-election campaign.Spokesman Ammar Moussa came out swinging against the former president in a statement:
      Today’s chaotic musings from Trump only remind the American people why they voted him out of office four years ago. While Trump rants and raves from his country club, President Biden is focused on what actually matters – delivering results for the American people, from lowering prescription drug costs to capping insulin prices and building an economy that works for the middle class. Trump thinks this election is about him and his power – not the American people – and that’s why he’s going to lose again.
      The Biden campaign has its own problems, particularly the president’s worrying poll numbers. A closely watched survey by the New York Times and Siena College released over the weekend showed voters remain skeptical of Biden, particularly over his ability to continue doing the job into his 80s:Tomorrow is Super Tuesday, when something like 15 states vote in presidential primaries. It’s supposed to be exciting, but probably won’t be, the Guardian’s David Smith reports:Microphone in hand, Nikki Haley was delivering a well-rehearsed stump speech when a primal cry came from the audience. “He cannot win a general election!” yelled a man, referring to Donald Trump and the ex-president’s chance against Joe Biden. “It is madness!”Haley supporters at a campaign rally in a tiny Washington hotel on Friday signaled their agreement. But they are in a distinct minority within the Republican party as the biggest day of this year’s primary election campaign approaches.Fifteen states and one territory will vote in contests known as Super Tuesday, when more than a third of delegates will be assigned to July’s Republican national convention in Milwaukee. Past results and opinion polls suggest that, by Tuesday night, Trump will have in effect wrapped up the Republican nomination against Haley, his sole remaining challenger.On the Democratic side, incumbent Biden has swept aside token challenges by Congressman Dean Phillips of Minnesota and the self-help author Marianne Williamson and is cruising to the nomination. The lopsided contests and lack of suspense are making Super Tuesday, one of the most celebrated rituals of the American election season, look not so super this time.Frank Luntz, a political consultant and pollster, said: “It never mattered less. I don’t know any political event that’s got more attention for being less relevant. The decision has been made. The choice is clear. You know who the two nominees are and 70% of Americans would rather it not be so.”Over the weekend, the United States airdropped food into Gaza, but the World Food Programme warned that may not be enough to prevent famine in the enclave. Here’s more on that, from the Guardian’s Emma Graham-Harrison and Quique Kierszenbaum:The deaths of more than 100 people when Israeli forces opened fire near an aid convoy in Gaza was a tragedy that should have been foreseen and could have been prevented, the World Food Programme country director for Palestine has said.Matthew Hollingworth also said an aid corridor into northern Gaza was needed urgently to prevent a “man-made” famine there after Palestinians were starved of food at terrifying speed and scale.“To have a situation today with half a million people facing famine in just five months is extraordinary at that scale,” he said. “There’s nowhere else in the world today with this many people at risk of famine. Nowhere. And it’s all man-made.”From the Guardian’s Emma Graham-Harrison and Julian Borger, here’s the latest on the negotiations aimed at achieving a temporary ceasefire in Israel’s invasion of Gaza, and the release of hostages taken by Hamas:Israel has provisionally accepted a six-week phased hostage and ceasefire deal which would begin with the release of wounded, elderly and female hostages, but it was still unclear on Saturday whether Hamas would accept it, US officials have claimed.Talks took place in Doha, the Qatari capital, on Saturday and were expected to move to Cairo on Sunday as the scale of looming starvation pushed the US to start air-dropping food into the enclave.The US said an extended ceasefire was the most direct route to getting large-scale aid deliveries into Gaza, and suggested that agreement was close. “The path to a ceasefire right now, literally at this hour, is straightforward,” a senior US official said. “And there’s a deal on the table. There’s a framework deal. The Israelis have more or less accepted it. And there will be a six-week ceasefire in Gaza starting today, if Hamas agrees to release the default defined category of vulnerable hostages: the sick the wounded, elderly and women. “We’re working around the clock to see if we can get this in place here over the coming week,” the official said. He said Israel had “basically” accepted the deal, but did not specify whether it still had reservations or what those were.Kamala Harris took some reporters’ questions in Washington, DC, moments ago as she headed for her meeting with Benny Gantz, a member of Israel’s war cabinet member and prominent centrist rival of right-wing prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.Asked by reporters about her pending message to Gantz, she said they would discuss getting the hostage deal done, getting more aid in to Gaza and “getting that six-week cease-fire”, the pool report said.“The president has been an extraordinary leader in getting us to this point that we have the six-week deal,” she said, adding, in response to a question about whether there is any difference between her and Joe Biden’s stance on these issues right now: “The president and I have been aligned and consistent from the very beginning.”The White House has just issued an additional statement that talks with Gantz will focus on a deal to bring remaining hostages held by Hamas in Gaza to safety, and more progress in delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza.Here’s what Harris just posted on X/Twitter a day after marking the civil rights anniversary, Bloody Sunday, in Alabama.Hamas and Egyptian mediators said on Monday they were pressing on with talks on securing a ceasefire in Gaza, despite an Israeli decision not to send a delegation, Reuters reports.The ceasefire talks, which began on Sunday in Cairo, are billed as a final hurdle to establish the first extended ceasefire of the five-month-old war, in time for the Ramadan Muslim fasting month which is expected to begin on Sunday.Israel has declined to comment publicly on the Cairo talks, including its decision not to attend. A source told Reuters Israel would stay away because Hamas refused a request to list which hostages are still alive, information the Palestinian militants say they will provide only once terms are agreed.
      Talks in Cairo continue for the second day regardless of whether the occupation’s delegation is present in Egypt,” a Hamas official told Reuters on Monday.
      Two Egyptian security sources said mediators were in touch with the Israelis, allowing negotiations to continue despite the delegation’s absence.A Palestinian source close to the talks said the discussions remained “uneasy”, with Israel sticking to its demand for only a temporary truce to free hostages, while Hamas was seeking assurances war would not start up again.Late on Monday, officials from Hamas, Egypt and Qatar began a second round of talks for the day, a Hamas source said.Washington, which is both Israel’s closest ally and a sponsor of the talks, says a deal remains close, with an agreement already effectively approved by Israel and only awaiting acceptance from Hamas.A temporary ceasefire is essential to a deal to release more of the hostages still held by Hamas since they were snatched during the attack by the Islamist group that controls Gaza on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, according to the White House.This news is still emerging over the wires and we’ll bring you details as they unfold. The White House just said there will be additional air drops of US aid over Gaza, which is besieged by Israel and where the north of the territory is almost cut off from aid entirely.Reuters is reporting that the White House stated that the US calls on Hamas to accept terms of a ceasefire and hostage release deal now. More as we get it.US vice president Kamala Harris is due to meet in Washington later this afternoon with Israeli war cabinet member Benny Gantz, a centrist and key rival to the hard right prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.The meeting is due to take place at 3pm ET and comes a day after Harris, who was in Alabama for the Bloody Sunday anniversary, urged an “immediate ceasefire” and bluntly called out Israel for not doing enough to ease a “humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza.Gantz is defying Netanyahu’s wishes in his visit to the US and sit-downs with leaders. He also plans to meet up with secretary of state Antony Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan.Joe Biden has been at Camp David since the weekend, hunkered down as he prepares this Thursday’s mega-high stakes State of the Union address.The supreme court overturned a Colorado ruling that barred Donald Trump from the state’s ballot for his involvement in the January 6 insurrection, issuing a decision that judges nationwide will likely cite to allow him to compete in the remaining Republican primaries, and the November general election. However, the court’s three liberal justices and one conservative worried that the authors of the majority opinion went further than necessary, though for different reasons. In remarks from his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, Trump thanked the court for their ruling, while also encouraging them to find him immune from prosecution for his attempts to overturn the 2020 election. That matter has yet to be decided.Here’s what else is going today:
      Allen Weisselberg, Trump’s former finance chief, pleaded guilty to perjury in New York City.
      Trump’s allies in Congress, including House speaker Mike Johnson and potential vice-presidential pick Elise Stefanik were also pleased with the supreme court’s ruling.
      The justices did not absolve Trump of the charge that he was involved in an insurrection, noted Neal Katyal, who used to argued before the supreme court on behalf of Barack Obama.
      But Donald Trump’s business with the supreme court isn’t finished, and the former president made a point of mentioning that in his speech.The justices have agreed to take up his argument that he is immune from prosecution for allegedly trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat, and a ruling in his favor could deal a death blow to special counsel Jack Smith’s case against him.At Mar-a-Lago, Trump said he hoped the high court would once again rule in his favor:
      And while we’re on the subject, and another thing that will be coming up very soon, will be immunity for a president, and not immunity for me, but for any president. If a president doesn’t have full immunity, you really don’t have a president, because nobody that is serving in that office will have the courage to make, in many cases, what would be the right decision, or it could be the wrong decision. It could be in some cases the wrong decision, but they have to make decisions and they have to make them free of all terror that can be rained upon them when they leave office or even before they leave office, and some decisions are very tough.
      I can tell you that as a president that some decisions to make are very tough. I took out ISIS and I took out some very big people from the standpoint of a different part of the world, two of the leading terrorists, probably the two leading terrorists ever, that we’ve ever seen in this world. And those are big decisions. I don’t want to be prosecuted for it.
      The charges against Trump don’t deal with his decisions to kill America’s enemies, but rather his multi-pronged strategy to block Joe Biden from taking office.Donald Trump is now delivering a meandering speech at Mar-a-Lago, where he has cheered the supreme court ruling allowing him to stay on presidential ballots, while also issuing familiar denunciations of the criminal cases against him.At the start of his remarks, the former president thanked the supreme court, saying the decision was “very well crafted. And I think it will go a long way toward bringing our country together, which our country needs. And … they worked hard.”Donald Trump is expected to soon deliver remarks from his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida after the supreme court this morning overturned a Colorado ruling that removed him from the presidential ballot.The court’s unanimous decision is expected to allow him to remain on primary and general election ballots nationwide and thwart a legal campaign to remove him over his participation in the January 6 insurrection.We’ll let you know what Trump says.As expected, Donald Trump’s former chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg has admitted to committing perjury in New York City. It’s unclear what that will mean for the former president’s upcoming trial on charges related to paying hush money, but one thing that is clear is that Weisselberg is likely headed back to jail.Here’s more on all that, from the Guardian’s Callum Jones:
      Allen Weisselberg, a longtime lieutenant to Donald Trump, faces five months in jail after reaching an agreement with prosecutors in New York to plead guilty to perjury in the former US president’s recent civil fraud trial charges.
      As the former chief financial officer in the Trump Organization, Weisselberg was key in helping Trump record his net worth. A defendant in the fraud trial, Weisselberg was accused of helping to inflate Trump’s net worth on government financial documents, misleading lenders.
      That trial ended with a judge imposing a huge financial penalty of more than $450m including interest on Trump. Weisselberg, 76, was ordered to pay $1.1m and permanently banned from serving in the financial control function of any New York business.
      Weisselberg also faces five months in jail after pleading guilty to perjury.
      On the witness stand in October, Weisselberg was evasive, often saying he did not recall the real estate valuations that were at the center of the trial.
      Donald Trump’s many Republican allies in Congress welcomed the supreme court’s ruling allowing him to continue his run for president.Here’s speaker of the House Mike Johnson, a leader of the failed effort to get the supreme court to block Joe Biden’s election victory in 2020:
      Today, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed what we all knew: the Colorado Supreme Court engaged in a purely partisan attack against the frontrunner for the Republican presidential primary. States engaging in the same activist, undemocratic behaviors should take notice and leave it to the American people to decide who will be president.
      And New York congresswoman Elise Stefanik, a member of House Republican leadership who is also seen as a potential running mate for Trump:
      Today’s unanimous 9-0 Supreme Court decision is a victory for the American people, the Constitution, and our Republic. As I have said since the start, extreme Democrats will shred the Constitution in order to prevent the American people from exercising their constitutional right to vote for President Donald Trump. This dangerous attempt by the radical Left to suppress votes was fundamentally unAmerican and why I was proud to sign on to the amicus brief to the Supreme Court. We the people decide elections, not unelected radical leftists.
      Finally, Jim Jordan, the Ohio congressman and chair of the House judiciary committee who has used the committee’s powers to pursue Joe Biden and his officials:
      Big win for common sense and democracy!
      From the Guardian’s Sam Levine, here’s more on what the supreme court’s decision today will mean for Donald Trump’s bid to return to the White House:Donald Trump was wrongly removed from Colorado’s primary ballot last year, the US supreme court has ruled, clearing the way for Trump to appear on the ballot in all 50 states.The court’s unanimous decision overturns a 4-3 ruling from the Colorado supreme court that said the former president could not run because he had engaged in insurrection during the January 6 attack on the US Capitol. The Colorado decision was a novel interpretation of section 3 of the 14th amendment, which bars insurrectionists from holding office.“We conclude that States may disqualify persons holding or attempting to hold state office. But States have no power under the Constitution to enforce Section 3 with respect to federal offices, especially the Presidency,” the court wrote in an unsigned opinion. Congress, the court said, had to enact the procedures for disqualification under Section 3.“State-by-state resolution of the question whether Section 3 bars a particular candidate for President from serving would be quite unlikely to yield a uniform answer consistent with the basic principle that the President … represent[s] all the voters in the Nation,” the court added.Colorado’s presidential primary is Tuesday and Trump had been allowed to appear on the ballot while the case was pending. Maine and a judge in Illinois had also excluded Trump from the ballot – decisions that are now likely to quickly be reversed.A few points about the supreme court’s decision allowing Donald Trump to continue running for president, from the Neal Katyal, a former justice department official who argued supreme court cases on behalf of Barack Obama: More

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      Trump was wrongly removed from Colorado ballot, US supreme court rules

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      Donald Trump was wrongly removed from Colorado’s primary ballot last year, the US supreme court has ruled, clearing the way for Trump to appear on the ballot in all 50 states.The court’s unanimous decision overturns a 4-3 ruling from the Colorado supreme court that said the former president could not run because he had engaged in insurrection during the January 6 attack on the US Capitol. The Colorado decision was a novel interpretation of section 3 of the 14th amendment, which bars insurrectionists from holding office.“We conclude that States may disqualify persons holding or attempting to hold state office. But States have no power under the Constitution to enforce Section 3 with respect to federal offices, especially the Presidency,” the court wrote in an unsigned opinion. Congress, the court said, had to enact the procedures for disqualification under Section 3.“State-by-state resolution of the question whether Section 3 bars a particular candidate for President from serving would be quite unlikely to yield a uniform answer consistent with the basic principle that the President … represent[s] all the voters in the Nation,” the court added.Colorado’s presidential primary is on Tuesday and Trump had been allowed to appear on the ballot while the case was pending. Maine and a judge in Illinois had also excluded Trump from the ballot – decisions that are now likely to be quickly reversed.All nine justices agreed with the central holding in the case: that the Colorado supreme court had wrongly barred Trump from appearing on the ballot. But agreement did not extend beyond that.The majority opinion went on to say that the only way to enforce section 3 was by specifically tailored congressional legislation to determine which individuals should be disqualified for insurrection.But Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson all said that finding went beyond the scope of the case, with the liberal justices specifically saying the court was shielding insurrectionists from accountability.“The Court continues on to resolve questions not before us. In a case involving no federal action whatsoever, the Court opines on how federal enforcement of Section 3 must proceed,” the liberal justices wrote. ‘“These musings are as inadequately supported as they are gratuitous.”The court’s conservative majority, the liberal justices said, had made it nearly impossible to hold insurrectionists accountable. The court “forecloses judicial enforcement” of the provision, they wrote, and was “ruling out enforcement under general federal statutes requiring the government to comply with the law”.“By resolving these and other questions, the majority attempts to insulate all alleged insurrectionists from future challenges to their holding federal office,” they wrote.Barrett, a conservative also appointed by Trump, also did not fully embrace the majority’s opinion. “I agree that States lack the power to enforce Section 3 against Presidential candidates. That principle is sufficient to resolve this case, and I would decide no more than that,” she wrote.But she went on to rebuke her liberal colleagues for amplifying disagreement on the court.“In my judgment, this is not the time to amplify disagreement with stridency. The Court has settled a politically charged issue in the volatile season of a Presidential election. Particularly in this circumstance, writings on the Court should turn the national temperature down, not up,” she wrote.Speaking at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, Trump praised the supreme court’s decision. “I want to start by thanking the supreme court for its unanimous decision today. It was a very important decision, very well crafted. I think it will go a long way toward bringing our country together, which our country needs,” he said.None of the opinions addressed a central and politically charged issue in the case – whether Trump engaged in insurrection on January 6.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“While the supreme court allowed Donald Trump back on the ballot on technical legal grounds, this was in no way a win for Trump. The supreme court had the opportunity in this case to exonerate Trump, and they chose not to do so,” Noah Bookbinder, the president of Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington, the left-leaning group that backed the Colorado case, said in a statement. “The supreme court removed an enforcement mechanism, and in letting Trump back on the ballot, they failed to meet the moment. But it is now clear that Trump led the January 6 insurrection, and it will be up to the American people to ensure accountability.”Enacted after the civil war, section 3 of the 14th amendment says that any member of Congress or officer of the United States who engages in insurrection after taking an oath to the constitution is barred from holding office. It has never been used to bar a presidential candidate from office.During oral argument in February, nearly all of the justices signaled skepticism of Colorado’s authority to remove Trump from the ballot. They worried about the chaos it would cause if states had the unilateral authority to determine a candidate had engaged in insurrection and worried it could result in a chaotic, partisan tit-for-tat.“I would expect that a goodly number of states will say whoever the Democratic candidate is, you’re off the ballot, and others, for the Republican candidate, you’re off the ballot. It will come down to just a handful of states that are going to decide the presidential election. That’s a pretty daunting consequence,” the chief justice, John Roberts, said during oral argument.The Colorado supreme court reached its conclusion after a Denver trial court judge held a five-day hearing and ruled that Trump had engaged in insurrection on January 6, but was not disqualified from the ballot because he was not an officer of the United States.At the end of their opinion, the three liberal justices offered a full-throated defense of why section 3 was still needed.“Section 3 serves an important, though rarely needed, role in our democracy. The American people have the power to vote for and elect candidates for national office, and that is a great and glorious thing. The men who drafted and ratified the Fourteenth Amendment, however, had witnessed an “insurrection [and] rebellion” to defend slavery. They wanted to ensure that those who had participated in that insurrection, and in possible future insurrections, could not return to prominent roles,” they wrote.“Today, the majority goes beyond the necessities of this case to limit how Section 3 can bar an oathbreaking insurrectionist from becoming President.” More

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      US supreme court to issue ruling as Trump Colorado ballot case looms

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      The US supreme court plans to issue at least one ruling on Monday, the day before Colorado holds a presidential primary election in which a lower court kicked Republican frontrunner Donald Trump off the ballot for taking part in an insurrection during the 6 January 2021 US Capitol attack.The supreme court, in an unusual Sunday update to its schedule, did not specify what ruling it would issue. But the justices on 8 February heard arguments in Trump’s appeal of the Colorado ruling and are due to issue their own decision.Colorado is one of 15 states and a US territory holding primary elections on “Super Tuesday”. Trump is the frontrunner for the Republican nomination to challenge Democratic President Joe Biden in the 5 November election.The Republican party of Colorado has asked the supreme court, whose 6-3 conservative majority include three justices appointed by Trump, to rule before Tuesday in the ballot eligibility case.During arguments, supreme court justices signaled sympathy toward Trump’s appeal of a 19 December ruling by Colorado’s top court to disqualify him from the state’s ballot under the US constitution’s 14th amendment.Section 3 of the 14th amendment bars from holding public office any “officer of the United States” who took an oath “to support the Constitution of the United States” and then “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof”.Trump supporters attacked police and swarmed the Capitol in a bid to prevent Congress from certifying Biden’s 2020 election victory. Trump gave an incendiary speech to supporters beforehand, telling them to go to the Capitol and “fight like hell”. He then for hours rebuffed requests that he urge the mob to stop.Anti-Trump forces have sought to disqualify him in more than two dozen other states – a mostly unsuccessful effort – over his actions relating to the January 6 attack. Maine and Illinois also have barred Trump from their ballot, though both those decisions are on hold pending the supreme court’s Colorado ruling.During arguments in the Colorado case, supreme court justices – conservatives and liberals alike – expressed concern about states taking sweeping actions that could impact a presidential election nationwide.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThey pondered how states can properly enforce the section 3 disqualification language against candidates, with several wondering whether Congress must first pass legislation do enable that. More

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      Liz Cheney: supreme court delay will deny voters ‘crucial evidence’ on Trump

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      A Republican member of the January 6 committee has said the supreme court’s decision to wade into Donald Trump’s immunity case will deny Americans crucial information about the former president’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat.Liz Cheney, a former Wyoming congresswoman who was ousted by primary voters angry at her participation in the hearings that followed the insurrection, also demanded the justices come to a speedy decision.In a message posted to X, formerly Twitter, Cheney, a vocal Trump critic, said voters needed to have a verdict on the presumed Republican presidential nominee before they go to the polls in November.“Delaying the January 6 trial suppresses critical evidence that Americans deserve to hear,” she wrote.“Donald Trump attempted to overturn an election and seize power. Our justice system must be able to bring him to trial before the next election. SCOTUS [supreme court of the US] should decide this case promptly.”Justices on Wednesday set the week of 22 April to hear oral arguments over Trump’s assertion that he cannot be held criminally responsible for actions he took to overturn his 2020 defeat by Joe Biden.Trump, who is facing a four-count indictment including conspiracy to defraud the US and conspiracy to obstruct the congressional certification of the election results, has declared the decision a victory, mostly because it puts the trial on hold, possibly until after the election.Some Democrats, meanwhile, are also upbeat about it. The California congressman Ted Lieu, who has previously accused Trump of committing multiple election crimes, said such a delay would work to his party’s advantage at the ballot box.“My view of the SCOTUS action: if the trial is delayed until after November, we will see the largest blue wave in history,” he wrote, also on X.“If November becomes a referendum on whether Trump faces justice, then Democrats will absolutely flip the House, keep the White House and expand the Senate.”Some legal experts are warning the supreme court’s action, along with delays already affecting several of the other legal cases Trump is facing, could have consequences for democracy.While many believe the court will ultimately confirm the rejection by a Washington DC appeals court of Trump’s claim, they say the delay could prove harmful.“This case really is most important in terms of democracy, and the most compelling with the evidence. That makes it very difficult in the sense there would be no verdict on this critical issue that cuts to the heart of democracy,” said Carl Tobias, Williams professor of law at the University of Richmond and a veteran supreme court analyst.“Maybe the supreme court just couldn’t resist, as the highest court in the land, weighing in on this very weighty question of presidential immunity, though most people who are clear-eyed about this don’t believe that there’s much of an argument for immunity in this context.“The court could have been perfectly satisfied with the DC circuit opinion, which was comprehensive and clear, and just seen no reason to take it up. But this is about delay. I don’t think anybody really disputes that. Trump’s theory over his entire life in litigation is that delay is his friend, and here it really is. It’s conceivable none of these cases goes to verdict before the election.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn a post on his Truth Social platform on Wednesday, Trump claimed that “legal scholars are extremely thankful for the supreme court’s decision”, and insisted without irony that future presidents would fear “wrongful prosecution and retaliation” after they left office if he loses.Trump himself has spoken openly of seeking “retribution and revenge” over political foes if he is returned to office, and said he would appoint a special prosecutor to “go after” Biden and his family.A former lawyer and legal analyst Lisa Rubin said she was “beyond terrified for our country” because the supreme court will delay the trial and potentially affect the election.“I honestly thought there would be enough votes on the court not to take this case, for no other reason than bad facts make bad law,” she told MSNBC News. “And the facts here could not be worse. If there was a context in which you wanted to decide the bounds of presidential immunity it’s not this case.”With oral arguments set for April, a ruling might not be handed down until May at the earliest.Alternatively, in the worst-case scenario for special counsel Jack Smith, the supreme court could wait until the end of its current term in July. That could mean the start of a trial expected to take up to three months might be delayed until no earlier than late September.Trump’s legal strategy has been to stall the various cases against him, ideally until after November’s election, in the hopes that a second term of office will allow him to pardon himself or install a loyal attorney general to drop charges.
      Hugo Lowell contributed reporting More

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      Supreme court to hear Trump immunity claim in election interference case

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      The US supreme court agreed on Wednesday to take up the unprecedented claim that Donald Trump has absolute immunity from prosecution in the criminal case over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, throwing into jeopardy whether it goes to trial before the 2024 election.The justices set oral arguments for the week of 22 April to consider a recent ruling by a three-judge panel at the US court of appeals for the DC circuit, which categorically rejected Trump’s immunity claim in a decision earlier this month.Trump’s criminal case will remain on hold until the supreme court ultimately rules on the matter, inserting it into the politically charged position of potentially influencing whether Trump will go to trial before the presidential election in November.The unsigned order said the court intended to address at oral arguments “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”.In the federal 2020 election case, Trump faces a four-count indictment in Washington DC brought by the special counsel, Jack Smith, that charges him with conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct the congressional certification of the election results, and violating rights.Trump sought to have the charges dismissed last year, arguing in a 52-page filing that the conduct he was charged with fell under the so-called “outer perimeter” of his official duties, which meant he could not be prosecuted because of the broad protections afforded to the presidency.The motion to dismiss contended that all of Trump’s attempts to reverse his 2020 election defeat detailed in the indictment, from pressuring his vice-president, Mike Pence, to stop the congressional certification of Biden’s victory 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.The arguments were rejected by the presiding US district judge Tanya Chutkan, and subsequently by the three-judge panel at the DC circuit, which wrote in an unsigned but unanimous decision that they could not endorse such an interpretation of executive power.“At bottom, former President Trump’s stance would collapse our system of separated powers by placing the President beyond the reach of all three Branches,” the opinion said. “We cannot accept that the office of the Presidency places its former occupants above the law for all time thereafter.”Trump’s lawyers settled on advancing the immunity claim last October in large part because it is what is known as an interlocutory appeal – an appeal that can be litigated pre-trial – and one that crucially put the case on hold while it was resolved.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionPutting the case on hold was important because Trump’s overarching strategy has been to seek delay, ideally even beyond the election, in the hopes that winning a second presidency could enable him to pardon himself or allow him to install a loyal attorney general who would drop the charges.The involvement of the supreme court now means the case continues to remain frozen until the justices issue a ruling. And even if the court rules against Trump, the case may not be ready for trial until late into the summer or beyond.The reason that Trump will not go to trial as soon as the supreme court rules is because Trump is technically entitled to the “defense preparation time” that he had remaining when he filed his first appeal to the DC circuit on 8 December 2023, which triggered the stay.Trump has 87 days remaining from that period, calculated by finding the difference between the original 4 March trial date and 8 December. The earliest that Trump could go to trial in Washington, as a result, is by adding 87 days to the date of the supreme court’s final decision.With oral arguments set for April, a ruling might not be handed down until May. Alternatively, in the worst case scenario for the special counsel, the supreme court could wait until the end of its current term in July, which could mean the trial might be delayed until late September at the earliest. More

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      in Elections

      Special counsel urges supreme court to reject Trump’s bid to delay election trial

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      The special counsel prosecuting Donald Trump on federal charges involving the former president’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss has urged the US supreme court to reject Trump’s bid to further delay trial proceedings as he presses his claim of immunity.Jack Smith’s filing to the justices responded to a request by Trump’s lawyers on Monday to put on hold a decision by a three-judge panel of the US court of appeals for the District of Columbia circuit rejecting the claim of presidential immunity from prosecution.If the justices do not immediately reject Trump’s request Smith asked the court to take up the case and hear it on a fast-track basis.Trump’s lawyers asked the justices to halt the trial proceedings pending their bid for the full slate of judges on the DC circuit to reconsider the case, and, if necessary, an appeal to the supreme court.The supreme court in December declined Smith’s request to decide the immunity claim even before the DC circuit ruled – a bid by the special counsel to speed up the process of resolving the matter. The justices opted instead to let the lower appeals court rule first, as is customary.A 4 March trial date for Trump in federal court in Washington on four criminal counts pursued by Smith in the election subversion case was postponed, with no new date yet set. Trump has pleaded not guilty and has sought to portray the case as politically motivated.“The nation has a compelling interest in seeing the charges brought to trial,” Smith said in his filing to the justices, adding that “the public interest in a prompt trial is at its zenith where, as here, a former president is charged with conspiring to subvert the electoral process so that he could remain in office”.Smith said Trump’s criminal charges reflect an alleged effort to “perpetuate himself in power and prevent the lawful winner of the 2020 presidential election from taking office. The charged crimes strike at the heart of our democracy.”“A president’s alleged criminal scheme to overturn an election and thwart the peaceful transfer of power to his successor should be the last place to recognize a novel form of absolute immunity from federal criminal law,” Smith added.Trump’s lawyers claim a months-long criminal trial of Trump “at the height of election season will radically disrupt” his ability to campaign against Joe Biden.Trump is charged with 91 felony counts across four criminal cases – in New York, Florida, Washington and Georgia. He denies all the charges and faces the threat of prison if convicted.In the federal election interference case, Trump is charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights, in his relentless pursuit to reverse the outcome of the 2020 election and remain in office.On 6 January 2021, a group of Trump’s supporters broke in to the US Capitol in a deadly but failed effort to prevent the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election. Trump had urged them to “fight like hell” at a rally near the White House just before the insurrection, then did not take strong action to call the mob off after they attacked police officers and invaded Congress.On Thursday, two hearings will take place in two of the other cases. Trump is expected to attend a hearing in New York in the case involving an alleged hush money scheme during the 2016 presidential election. Prosecutors accuse Trump of illegally reimbursing his former fixer Michael Cohen for money paid to the adult film producer and actor Stormy Daniels. This case is due to go to trial in March.And in Atlanta, a judge will hold a hearing in the state election interference and racketeering case brought against Trump and multiple co-defendants, where details will be presented about Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis’s relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade.And Trump awaits the decision of a civil judge in New York on the fraud case against his family business, the Trump Organization, which could gut his real estate empire. More

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      in US Politics

      The US supreme court may turn this election into a constitutional crisis | Sidney Blumenthal

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      Imagine it is 6 January 2025. The bell tolls for the day of electoral college certification again. All the events of 2024 converge:The US supreme court’s likely ruling in Trump v Anderson denying Colorado’s disqualification of Trump under the constitution’s 14th amendment, section 3; the exoneration of Joe Biden by special counsel Robert Hur for handling documents while sideswiping him as near senile; the ruling on Trump’s immunity; the trial for his coup attempt; and Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s defiance of federal court rulings in deploying his national guard to the border, supported by other Republican governors who have mobilized their guard units in similar acts of nullification – all these happenings could hurtle to a convulsive confrontation.The supreme court was precisely cautioned against fostering “potentially disastrous turmoil” if it were to rule against Colorado, in an amicus brief submitted by Benjamin Ginsberg, who for decades was the leading Republican party attorney on elections, along with two prominent legal scholars, Richard Hasen, professor at the UCLA law school, and Edward Foley, professor at the Ohio State University law school.The brief by Ginsberg et al was unvarnished: “A decision from this court leaving unresolved the question of Donald Trump’s qualification to hold the office of president of the United States under section 3 of the 14th amendment until after the 2024 election would risk catastrophic political instability, chance disenfranchising millions of voters, and raise the possibility of public violence before, on, and after November 5 2024.”The brief added that “the grounds for avoiding the merits are not credible: Colorado manifestly had the authority to determine Mr Trump’s legal qualification for the office he seeks, and this court has jurisdiction to review that federal-law decision on its merits. To punt on the merits would invite chaos while risking great damage to the court’s reputation and to the Nation as a whole.”But apparently the justices failed to read this brief, just as they apparently failed to read the various amicus briefs filed by distinguished historians.Picture how the scenario might unfold as though reading it as a history from the vantage point of one year from now. The Ginsberg brief predicts the dire consequences that would flow from the supreme court ruling against Colorado. If we layer on to that prophesy the seemingly disparate events of this winter of our discontent we can see, through a mixture of fact and speculation, a disastrous unraveling.Start with the supreme court ruling that a state is not the proper body to determine a disqualification under the 14th amendment, section 3. That would, as the Ginsberg brief states, leave enforcement inevitably, by a process of elimination, to the Congress. The justices’ frantic effort to escape responsibility for upholding the plain language of the 14th amendment in the name of saving the country from a hypothetical political crisis would potentially create a very real constitutional one.In that light, the election result might prove irrelevant. The reason is that now, according to this scenario, the 119th Congress, sworn in on 3 January 2025, could reject the electors from states for Trump by deciding that he is an insurrectionist. The supreme court would have set the stage. If the Democrats were to win the House, they could remove Trump. If the Republicans win control of the Senate, the majority leader, Mitch McConnell, refusing to whip the vote for Trump, could allow a number of Republican senators to vote for Trump’s disqualification, which would void his electoral votes by both chambers.If there is a deadlock, the Ginsberg brief argues, the House still would have an option to remove Trump. Under the Electoral Vote Reform Act, the House would establish rules under the constitution’s 12th amendment in which each state delegation gets one vote in the House. But before that would have taken place, the House could vote that Trump is excluded from a 12th amendment ballot because he was disqualified under the 14th amendment, section 3. No one not on the ballot for president could be substituted. Which means that Joe Biden would be re-elected in any case.All along, throughout the entire campaign year, that would mean that Trump has never been qualified. And it would also mean that only the supreme court decision against Colorado made it seem that he was.In the hearing of the Colorado case earlier this month, Chief Justice John Roberts cast aside the pretense of the conservative doctrines of originalism and textualism on which the supreme court has eviscerated voting rights, gun control and abortion rights. He retreated into a political hypothetical that if the court ruled in Colorado’s favor Biden might be subject to attempts to remove him from the ballot as an insurrectionist.Roberts prattled, “… maybe they’ve got a stack of papers saying here’s why I think this person is guilty of insurrection, it’s not a big insurrection, something that, you know, happened down – down the street, but they say this is still an insurrection … I don’t know what the standard is for when it arises to that.”Led by Roberts, the justices refused to define an insurrection, which was the heart of the Colorado supreme court’s ruling. Roberts’ hypothetical, besides tossing overboard originalism, was more than supercilious punditry. Perhaps his scenario was based on his familiarity with the tactics of the right wing.But Roberts also inadvertently revealed an implicit contempt for the federal system of justice. If a ludicrous suit were ever to be filed against Biden claiming he was an insurrectionist, it would enter into the process of that state’s courts. Roberts apparently had scant confidence in the state courts, up to their supreme courts, to render a sensible decision to throw out transparently mischievous cases. And if a silly case somehow made it to the supreme court, Roberts himself could lead it to deny certiorari. But in his eagerness to find some cause to rule against Colorado, Roberts may have suffered a memory lapse about the fundamental workings of the judicial system.With a supreme court ruling against Colorado, Trump would hail it as a major political victory, brandishing it as proof that all of the charges against him were motivated by partisanship.Now, imagine that in the 2024 election Biden wins the popular vote for the presidency by millions. That is not such a difficulty. Only one Democrat since 1992 has lost the popular vote in a presidential election.But consider that Biden’s overall vote and vote in swing states might be hurt by a lingering ill wind from the special counsel’s report, blowing in suspicion that, despite his command of foreign policy, military affairs and congressional negotiations, he is too damn old, unlike his unsympathetic, malicious, despised and also elderly opponent.If that report imprinted the notion that Biden’s age reflected disability, then wavering voters could fail to grant Biden the credit for his accomplishments, instead giving more weight to the image of him as incapacitated, leaving the record of his presidency unexplained. Trump’s malignant rants, meanwhile, would be, as they are often now, either accepted or dismissed.Cognitive dissonance, rather than cognitive function, in the election could prove to be the critical factor. The president who lifted the country out of Trump’s massive economic and social fiasco in the Covid crisis, and steered it through the resulting inflation to a fabled soft landing, would be perceived as having little to do with his own purpose and therefore weak. On the economy, it’s the stupidity, stupid.The cognitive disconnect in failing to attribute results to Biden’s actions would have enormous political consequences. The more Biden would try to explain the benefits of his policies, the more the Maga base and suggestible voters would disbelieve him because they have already decided he was too old to do anything, a perception reinforced not only by Fox News but also by the drumbeat of mainstream and social media.The election would then disclose the tenacity of the primitive mind. Trump’s bluster would be equated with strength and his threats with energy. The more bellicose he behaves, the more he would be seen as strong; the more incoherently he babbles, the more his supporters believe he knows what he was talking about. While Biden’s irrelevant gaffes have so far been held against him, Trump’s stream of semiconsciousness has been credited as a sign of vigor. The primitive mind that instinctively associates ape-like bellowing with power will not be swayed.Special counsel Robert Hur’s report on the storage of documents at the Penn Biden Center and Biden’s home, published earlier this month, underscored the negative campaign attack. The report’s first line was that “no criminal charges are warranted”. This was followed by contradictory assertions that Biden “willfully retained” documents and that “reasonable jurors” would conclude “that he did not retain them willfully”, and that “he made an innocent mistake, rather than acting willfully – that is, with intent to break the law – as the statute requires”.Having exonerated Biden, the special counsel added this snark: “We have also considered that, at trial, Mr Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”The press attention to the latter part of the sentence has almost always left out the first part – the conjecture of a trial. Yet, as Hur made clear in the opening of his report, he had already decided that he would not bring charges because he lacked evidence, much less a single witness he could bring before a grand jury. When Hur wrote the line he knew there could be no trial.In Biden, Hur had a president “willfully” dedicated to cooperation. He appeared for a deposition at the White House for more than five crucial hours on 8 and 9 October, immediately after the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel, in which he was immersed in urgent national security meetings and conversations with world leaders. There was no appearance of obstruction of justice or perjury, as there was in the documents case against Trump. Instead, Biden was willing to elevate the legal process over affairs of state.Biden’s quoted statements that appeared muddled are completely familiar to anyone who has ever had a discussion with him. I have personally had long conversations with Biden since I met him nearly 40 years ago. He has a habit of ruminating, wandering and voicing fragments of thought aloud, but always returns to his subject with considerable knowledge, experience and clear views. (I know of many people who have had conversations with Biden very recently, who report that he is focused, sharp and has a cogent grasp of the many crises he is handling at once.)Hur’s elaborately cute description of a doddering Biden was not gratuitous; it was carefully crafted. Hur knowingly lent the imprimatur of a Department of Justice report to character assassination. Then, Attorney General Merrick Garland naively released it unredacted to the public – red meat for the jackal pack.What was Robert Hur’s state of mind? The most generous interpretation of the special counsel’s innuendo may have been that he was innocent of any experience with a charming Irish American politician. The irony was surely lost on the hardwired conservative that his description of Biden fit Ronald Reagan to a T. But Hur instrumentally deployed his summary of his encounter with Biden as an excuse for his lack of evidence.Hur is a cold-blooded Javert as rightwing careerist. He is a representative man of the first generation bred entirely within the hothouse of the Federalist Society from his start to his smear. Beginning as a summer intern in 2000 at Kirkland & Ellis, where he had the model of partner Brett Kavanaugh, he clerked for Chief Justice William Rehnquist in the period when he was issuing opinions blocking abortion clinics from using Rico to sue anti-abortion protesters for damages, in Scheidler v National Organization for Women, and striking down affirmative action to increase racial diversity in college admissions, in Grutter v Bollinger and Gratz v Bollinger.Hur was an associate to then deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein, who defended then attorney general William Barr’s misrepresentation of a redacted version of the Mueller report on Russian interference in the presidential election of 2016 to assist Trump. Trump appointed Hur the US attorney for Maryland, which certainly met with the approval of the Federalist Society chair, Leonard Leo. Hur has been a featured speaker at Federalist Society events since 2007.Hur’s report was not obsessional or fanatical, but professional. It was in effect his job application for the next Republican administration.Now, imagine, if the scenario of the Ginsberg brief is a catastrophe foretold, that all these events tumble unpredictably to 6 January 2025 and beyond. One of the analytic tools of historical understanding is to speculate on what might have happened if events took unexpected twists and turns. The proverb “for want of a nail” suggests that the absence of a minor factor produced a major outcome. In chaos theory, the butterfly effect describes the impact of seemingly random occurrences that set in motion a chain reaction leading to enormous change – the flapping of a butterfly’s wings that results in a distant tornado. A supreme court ruling and a special counsel’s report are more than a nail and a butterfly’s wings.So, consider the possible effects in a not-so-distant future:Disqualified by the Congress, an enraged Trump files a suit before the supreme court. But that is just a gesture. After the 2020 election, he incited a mob to attack the Capitol. Suppose that now he calls on the Texas governor – and other Republican governors – to send national guard units to enforce his “election”. Biden federalizes them, but the Republican governors proclaim that he has usurped power to keep himself in office illegitimately and that Trump is the truly elected president.Self-installed as the president of the de facto Second Confederacy, Trump’s first act is to pardon himself of all federal crimes. He has called Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orbán and Benjamin Netanyahu to request that they recognize him as the true president. Putin offers him asylum.As armies prepare to clash on a darkling plain, Trump’s last-ditch appeal in the Manhattan election fraud case for paying hush money to a porn star goes against him. The New York appellate court announces it has upheld his prison sentence and fine. Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida responds that while Trump might be the president he will honor the extradition clause of the constitution to deliver him from Mar-a-Lago as a fugitive from justice. Trump flees to Texas, where Governor Abbott refuses the extradition order. Trump proclaims he is president wherever he is.The case for remanding Trump to jail in New York then goes to the supreme court. Having decided that the 14th amendment, section 3, is not self-executing, that a state cannot enforce it, the justices must now decide whether to uphold a district attorney under a state law to seize a convicted criminal under the extradition clause, which has always been pro forma. The court puts the case on its calendar several months in the future in the spring of 2025. Its conservative members are at the moment on an extended Federalist Society retreat at a private luxury lodge in Wyoming paid for by Harlan Crow.Or we click the heels of the ruby slippers. “There’s no place like home.” We awake from a phantasmagorical dream in a bed surrounded by Aunt Em and Uncle Henry.
      Sidney Blumenthal is a Guardian US columnist. He is a former senior adviser to President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton and has published three books of a projected five-volume political life of Abraham Lincoln: A Self-Made Man, Wrestling With His Angel and All the Powers of Earth More

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      in Elections

      Trump asks US supreme court to keep election interference case frozen

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      Lawyers for Donald Trump asked the US supreme court on Monday to keep on hold the criminal case over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results while he prepares to challenge a recent appeals court ruling that found he was not immune from prosecution.The former US president also asked the nation’s highest court to stay the US court of appeals for the DC circuit order that prevented him from seeking what is known as an “en banc” rehearing of the case by the full bench of appeals judges.“President Trump’s application easily satisfies this Court’s traditional factors for granting a stay of the mandate pending en banc review and review on certiorari by this Court,” Trump’s lawyers John Sauer, John Lauro and Greg Singer wrote in the 110-page petition.The petition argued that Trump had met the key tests for the supreme court to grant a stay because there was a strong likelihood it would hear the case and because without a stay, Trump would suffer “irreparable injury” if the case proceeded to trial in the interim.“It is axiomatic that President Trump’s claim of immunity is an entitlement not to stand trial at all, and to avoid the burdens of litigation pending review of his claim,” the petition said.The filing broadly expounded earlier arguments Trump had made about presidential immunity, which his legal team has viewed as the best vehicle to delay the impending trial because it was a vehicle through which Trump could pursue an appeal before trial that also triggered an automatic stay.Trump has made it no secret that his strategy for all his impending cases is to seek delay – ideally beyond the 2024 election in November, in the hopes that winning a second presidency could enable him to pardon himself or direct his attorney general to drop the charges.For months, Trump has attempted to advance a sweeping view of executive power – that he enjoyed absolute immunity from prosecution because the conduct charged by the special counsel Jack Smith fell within the “outer perimeter” of his duties as president.The contention received short shrift from the US district judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing his case in Washington and rejected his argument. It received similar treatment from a three-judge panel at the DC circuit, which categorically rejected his position.“We cannot accept former president Trump’s claim that a president has unbounded authority to commit crimes that would neutralize the most fundamental check on executive power,” the unsigned but unanimous opinion from the three-judge panel said.“At bottom, former president Trump’s stance would collapse our system of separated powers by placing the president beyond the reach of all three [government] branches,” the opinion said. “We cannot accept that the office of the presidency places its former occupants above the law for all time thereafter.”But Trump’s lawyers have long viewed the immunity issue as more of a vehicle to stall the case from going to trial than an argument they would win on its merits. It was perhaps the only motion they could make that triggered an appeal before trial and came with an automatic stay.Trump was forced to appeal directly to the supreme court, instead of making an intermediary challenge that would cause further delay, after the DC circuit panel issued parameters on how Trump could use further appeals if he wanted the case to remain frozen.The panel ruled that Trump needed to petition the supreme court by Monday to keep the stay in place. The stay would remain until the supreme court either declined to hear the case or until it issued a judgment in the event it did agree to take up the matter.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThat effectively foreclosed Trump from pursuing an “en banc” rehearing – which is where the full bench of judges at the DC circuit would reconsider the decision of the three-judge panel – since pre-trial proceedings under Chutkan would resume while he waited for the DC circuit to weigh in.Over the weekend, Trump’s chief appellate lawyer John Sauer prepared the application for a stay, a person familiar with the matter said.The concern in recent days among the Trump legal team has been whether the supreme court would agree to keep the case frozen while Trump made his final appeal, the person said. And even if they granted the stay, it remains unclear whether the supreme court would ultimately agree to take up the case.How the court moves next could decide whether Trump will go to trial on the federal election interference case before the 2024 presidential election. Recent public polls have shown that voters would be more inclined to vote for the Democratic incumbent Joe Biden, who defeated Trump in 2020, if Trump was convicted in this case.If the supreme court declines to hear the case, it would return jurisdiction to Chutkan in the federal district court in Washington. Chutkan scrapped the 4 March trial date she initially scheduled, but has otherwise shown a determination to proceed to trial with unusual haste.If the supreme court does accept the case, the question will be how quickly it schedules deadlines and arguments – and how quickly it issues a decision. The closer to the end of its term that the court issues a decision, the more unlikely a trial would take place before the election.The speed with which the supreme court moves has become important because Chutkan has promised Trump that he would get the full seven months to prepare his trial defense that she envisioned in her original scheduling order that set the 4 March trial date. More