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Special counsel Jack Smith asks the Supreme Court to rule quickly on whether Trump can be prosecuted

Special counsel Jack Smith on Monday asked the Supreme Court to take up and rule quickly on whether former President Donald Trump can be prosecuted on charges he plotted to overturn the 2020 election results.

Smith made his request for the court to act with unusual speed to prevent any delays that could push back the trial of the 2024 Republican presidential primary front-runner, currently set to begin March 4, until after next year’s presidential election.

Later Monday, the justices indicated they would decide quickly whether to hear the case, ordering Trump’s lawyers to respond by Dec. 20. The court’s brief order did not signal what it ultimately would do.

lennybird ,
@lennybird@lemmy.world avatar

Sure seems like Mr. Smith is the real deal and doesn’t fuck around, unlike Mueller who just wanted to proceed with his retirement to a private consulting gig.

JimmyBigSausage ,

This is the biggest news of the day.

FlashMobOfOne ,
@FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world avatar

No, it isn’t.

We’ve been seeing different variations of this same headline for years.

Nothing is going to happen. All this does is sell ad clicks.

paddirn ,

Can’t wait to see the olympic mental gymnastics they’ll get into to suggest that Trump has lifetime immunity to prosecution (while simultaneously leaving it open for any other president to be prosecuted).

Bdtrngl ,

If they rule in favor of trump, Biden might as well go around clapping metal on the justices and any stray Republicans he can find.

Motorheady ,

I am not educated at all in law, the US constitution or politics, but if Trump broke laws on Jan 6 and the Supreme Court rules that he (or any president) can not be prosecuted for his actions, what is stopping Biden from telling the cia or fbi or whomever to grab trump and stick him in jail or take him to Guantanamo bay and leave him there. That would clearly be a crime but… oh well!

JimmyBigSausage ,

But he does belong in prison.

SpaceNoodle ,

Yes, that’s why we’re talking about it.

modifier ,

How he gets there matters.

abraxas ,

“Narrow Precedent”. I don’t see it happening because they have no loyalty to Trump, but it could.

They can vaguely rule that some unique aspects of the Trump case makes it different unique and that courts should not take it as jurisprudence for future cases. There’s more to it, obviously. Lower courts can “narrow” a SCOTUS precedent if it is defensible to do so by being able to defend their interpretation as non-contradictory to the SCOTUS precent (some subtle differences from the case law), but SCOTUS occasionally instructs that a decision should not be taken as precedent. Lower courts can ignore that (and afair, it has happened), but it leaves SCOTUS open to the idea of Biden being prosecuted in the future.

shasta ,

He can order it but those people he commands in the CIA or wherever would not be immune to prosecution. Trump’s situation is unique in that his crimes are essentially all due to things he said and some inactions (like not calling in the national guard). His lackeys (the random people in the mob) were not immune to prosecution and many of them are in jail. Professionals like CIA agents can identify an illegal order when the see one and will just only ignore it (hopefully).

Buffalox ,

WTF? How is that even a question?
While he was president, there are protections against frivolous suits, to protect the office so it can function. But this???

800XL ,

This isn’t a frivolous suit tho. The dude is a dyed-in-the-wool criminal.

Buffalox ,

No this is absolutely not frivolous, but even if it was, it should be up to the court to decide on normal terms. Trump is not the President of USA anymore.
How this is in any way considered a matter for supreme court is very weird IMO. I’m not an American, but it sounds unconstitutional to even ask.
Just asking the question, is putting Trump above the law to some degree.

otter ,

No, it’s preemptively nipping any appeals shenanigans that Trump’s legal team might try, leading up to the election.

Kid_Thunder ,

The Dept. of Justice has a policy against indicting sitting Presidents but not necessarily former Presidents. Trump's lawyers are basically saying that since he was a sitting President during Jan 6, 2021, they shouldn't be able to indict him now that he's not longer a sitting President.

Right now they are spending a lot of time deciding whether Trump, when speaking to the masses was acting as a President or if he was campaigning for his new term as a private citizen, as well as, whether anyone but the actual sitting President at the time can even answer that question.

Trump's lawyers, at this moment, do not necessarily need to prove that the act isn't treason but only that he was the President and was acting as a President with his statements. If that entire line of defense is taken away, it severely weakens Trump's current defense strategy.

shalafi ,

Smith intends to shortcut the appeals process by going straight to the top. And yes, this is unusual, but not without precedent. The Supreme Court told Nixon to get bent in a similar case.

Playing with fire a bit, but I have full faith in Smith. But think about it, what if I had your ass in court and said, “Fuck @Buffalox! Take his case to the Supreme Court and get a ruling that he’s preemptively fucked, without recourse to lower courts.” Smith said as much:

“The United States recognizes that this is an extraordinary request. This is an extraordinary case,” prosecutors wrote. “The Court should grant certiorari and set a briefing schedule that would permit this case to be argued and resolved as promptly as possible.”

The Court doesn’t have to take it, and may not. If they don’t, that means the lower court’s ruling stays, “Hell yes Trump is able to be prosecuted.” If they do, I still imagine they judge Trump open to prosecution. Just because they’re conservative and he appointed them, they don’t owe him jack shit. Like all the power players, they probably hate his guts. And unlike elected politicians, the justices have nothing to lose.

protist ,

If they take the case, I’m eager to read the Alito/Thomas dissent

TheDoozer ,

Alito: According to a legal tenet established in 1486, the law states unequivocally that fuck you, that’s why.

Thomas: The winner at the close of bidding establishes unequivocally that Trump shouldn’t go to jail.

Mamertine ,

The writers of constitution of the United States were advocates of the “Rule of Law”.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_law

For those not in the know, it’s a legal philosophy saying that the laws should apply equality to everyone. The constitution writers disliked that the King was above the law. They wanted no one to be above the law.

Now we get to see if the Supreme Court still believes in the rule of law.

Bonesince1997 ,

Thank you for that.

DarkGamer ,
@DarkGamer@kbin.social avatar

They were also deists who wanted separation between church and state, (at the time because of the Church of England.) Interesting how supposedly originalist conservatives often want a theocracy.

EatATaco ,

They were a diverse group of people with wildly different views on things, and most states had some form of religious establishment at our founding. Remember, the cotus was originally a restriction only on the federal government, and didn’t extend to the states until the 14th amendment after the civil war.

Plenty wanted, and had, state supoortes religion. Plenty meant freedom of religion for Christians.

Which is why this is such a contentious issue… It’s always been that way.

BajaTacos ,

We’ll have to look into what witch hunting jurists of the 1600s thought first.

BigWheelPowerBrakeSlider ,

Sovereign Immunity is calling and would like a word.

Chetzemoka ,

In the United States, sovereign immunity only immunizes the government against lawsuits. It doesn’t provide an individual with immunity against criminal prosecution.

BigWheelPowerBrakeSlider ,

Yes, the comment was about the rule of law and nobody being above the law. Sovereign immunity puts certain people above certain laws (i.e. can’t sue the cop that barrels down the street at 75mph in a 25 mph zone and kills a pedestrian. (Or in some states there are damages caps.)) Any regular Joe would not get such immunity. So, we already have asterisks in our rule of law system–where a certain class of people are not subject to the same laws as others–one being sovereign immunity. Corporate protections arguably being another. A corporation can be guilty of a criminal charge but not necessarily the actual people that made the crime happen, which is seemingly absurd. Or you can’t sue corporate execs individually even if it was their personal actions that led to harm to others, as long as it was done within the course and scope of their employment. For example, upper level execs know they are polluting and causing harm to environment/people. You can sue the company, but you’re likely not going to be able to pierce the corporate veil to get to the execs who actually committed the act.

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