Donald Trump has been present at the Supreme Court this past year. He has been talked about in a case in which it is discussed whether his name can be used without permission on t-shirts that denigrate him and also in another case about whether public officials can block citizens on their social networks. Minor matters. However, the moment of truth arrives. Jack Smith, the special prosecutor investigating the former president, hat the request of the Supreme Court this Monday in an 81-page document to decide whether Trump can be prosecuted over allegations that he conspired to overturn the results of the 2020 election or has immunity, as his lawyers claim.
The Supreme Court has a six-to-three conservative supermajority. In addition, three of its justices were appointed by Trump himself when he was president. In a judicial course marked by the four accusations against the former president (in New York, Florida, Washington and Georgia), it was clear that some of its derivatives would reach the top of the judicial pyramid, but it was not expected that they would do so so soon. .
Jack Smith has decided not to wait for the federal appeals court in Washington to rule and to take the case directly to the Supreme Court, an unusual move used in cases of national crisis. In reality, nothing is usual in relation to the cases against Trump, the first president or former president indicted in the history of the United States.
Federal Judge Tanya Chutkan set the start of Washington's trial for March 4 for the attempt to alter the results of the 2020 election, which he lost to Joe Biden. Trump claimed presidential immunity on the grounds that he was exercising the functions of his office, but the judge flatly rejected his request to file the case. “The text, structure and history of the Constitution do not support that argument. No court, nor any other power of the State, has ever accepted it. And this court will not do it. Whatever immunities a sitting president may enjoy, the United States only has one chief executive at a time, and that position does not confer a lifetime pass out of prison,” Chutkan said in his resolution.
The former president's lawyers appealed to the appeals court, arguing that the case should be paralyzed while that previous issue is resolved. “The filing of President Trump's notice of appeal has deprived this Court of jurisdiction over this case in its entirety pending resolution of the appeal,” Trump's lawyers wrote in a court filing. “Therefore, a suspension of all subsequent proceedings is mandatory and automatic,” they argued. This appeal could be followed by another to the Supreme Court, which could delay the trial until after the presidential elections on November 5, 2024.
Special prosecutor Jack Smith, however, rejected that interpretation. In a document presented this Sunday he indicated that the investigation of the case must continue in parallel while the appeal is resolved and that the trial date must be maintained. But now, Smith takes a step further by taking the case to the Supreme Court to directly deal with deciding on immunity. With this he tries to keep the trial for March 4 or, at least, minimize the delay on that date.
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“This case presents a fundamental question at the heart of our democracy: whether a former president is absolutely immune from federal prosecution for crimes committed during his term or is constitutionally protected from federal prosecution when he has been politically prosecuted with a impeachment, but not convicted before the criminal process begins,” prosecutors maintain. “It is of imperative public importance that the defendant's immunity claims be resolved by this Court and that the defendant's trial proceed as soon as possible if his immunity claim is rejected,” they add.
“The public importance of the issues, the imminence of the scheduled trial date, and the need for a rapid and final resolution of the defendant's immunity claims argue in favor of expedited review by this court at this time,” he argues. The prosecutor. Smith demands that an “expedited procedure” be used that was used after President Richard Nixon's refusal to hand over the recordings to the special prosecutor investigating the Watergate case.
The earliest date for the Supreme Court judges to decide whether to admit the case is January 5, the day on which the next closed-door conference of the magistrates is scheduled, which is where they decide on the admission of cases. according to the court calendar.
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