After resounding losses in the lower courts, former United States President Donald Trump’s claim of immunity from prosecution for trying to overturn his 2020 election loss now heads to the Supreme Court, a key development likely to further delay his trial as he again runs for re-election. The nation’s highest court will only hear arguments during the week of April 22 after an appeals court on 6 February unanimously rejected his claim that he was shielded from criminal prosecutions over actions taken while in office.
The former President and Republican frontrunner in this year’s November election received a boost when the Supreme Court agreed to take up the case because it further delays his federal trial on his efforts to subvert the 2020 election result, which saw his supporters storming the US Capitol precinct where efforts were underway to certify President Joe Biden’s resounding election win.
This is just one of two federal indictments brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith, while he further faces a Georgia State election interference case and a hush-money case in Manhattan – the latter which goes to trial on 25 March. An original 4 March trial date for the federal election subversion case has been pushed back pending the exhaustion of Trump’s immunity claim through the appeals process.
“There are very few legal scholars who think that a majority of the court would agree that any president would have this sort of broad immunity over any conduct in office, much less the particular conduct that’s alleged here. So, that doesn’t mean, though, that, it’s a happy day in Jack Smith’s office. It’s probably not, because this is necessarily going to continue to delay things to some degree. How much delay this is going to be, we don’t know yet. This could add, you know, perhaps maybe another two months to the calendar and that would be among the kind of best-case scenarios for Jack Smith. This would involve the Supreme Court, you know, hearing these arguments and then fairly quickly coming out with a decision that lets Judge Chutkan continue the trial and shoots down this immunity claim,” says Political Scientist at the University of Nevada Rebecca Gill.
The Special Counsel has accused Trump of conspiring to defraud the US, obstructing and conspiring to thwart the congressional certification of the 2020 election result and conspiring against the rights of Americans to vote – with these court delays likely to have profound implications.
“The play here for them is for time.Because, you know, it’s not lost on his team that if they can delay this such that this trial doesn’t start before the election, then if he wins the election, he can direct his Justice Department to just drop this case.”
In other news this week, an announcement from the longest serving leader of Republicans in the Senate that he would relinquish the leadership mantle in November after his brand of traditional conservationism fell foul of the isolationist populism of Donald Trump and the Make America Great Again movement.
“As long as I’m drawing breath on this earth, I will defend American exceptionalism. So, as I’ve been thinking about when I would deliver some news to the Senate, I always imagined a moment when I had total clarity and peace about the sunset of my work. A moment when I’m certain I have helped preserve the ideals I so strongly believed. That day arrived today,” says Senate leader Mitch McConnell
And President Biden’s physician says the incumbent, who at 81 is the oldest President in U.S. history and seeking re-election, is fit for duty after conducting an annual physical earlier this week. Dr Kevin O’Connor issued a six-page memo on the president’s health describing him as healthy, vigorous and fit to handle his White House obligations.
The President asked here if there was anything Americans should be worried about. “Well, they think I look too young. Thank you. No, there is nothing different from last year.”
If Biden wins re-election he will be 86 at the end of his second term and where Trump to prevail, he’d be 82. But what remains unclear for now is the impact his legal peril will have on his re-election prospects and were he to win, he’d likely be able to circumvent his federal trials by using his powers to end the prosecutions or by potentially pardoning himself – in what would be an unprecedented move.
