Special counsel asks Supreme Court not to paralyze Trump's trial in Washington

Special prosecutor Jack Smith has asked the Supreme Court to allow progress in the process to try Donald Trump in Washington for his attempts to alter the result of the 2020 presidential election, which he lost against Joe Biden. The prosecutor opposes Trump's request that the case be put on hold while the judges decide whether the former president has immunity from prosecution for alleged crimes committed in the exercise of his office.

The prosecutor has registered a 40-page document before the Supreme Court with its position contrary to that paralysis. “The alleged crimes strike at the heart of our democracy,” he alleges in the document. “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,” he adds.

“The delay in resolving these charges threatens to frustrate the public interest in a speedy and fair verdict, a compelling interest in all criminal cases and one that has unique national importance in this case, as it involves federal criminal charges against a former president for alleged criminal efforts to overturn the results of the presidential election, including through the use of official power,” he argues.

Trump has already managed to delay the process and has so far avoided sitting in the dock in the middle of the Republican Party primaries. Judge Tanya Chutkan had scheduled the trial for March 4, but Trump's resources have forced her to postpone it indefinitely. Last week, the former president asked the Supreme Court to keep the case on hold while he advanced some of the arguments in his appeal: “Without criminal immunity, the presidency as we know it will cease to exist.”

The former president wants the Supreme Court to rule that the investigation of the case cannot continue, nor, therefore, with the trial, while he continues to appeal to the courts to recognize an alleged immunity. Judge Tanya Chutkan, in charge of the case in which Trump is accused of four possible crimes for his maneuvers to alter the electoral result and prevent the transfer of power, has already denied immunity. Trump appealed and the three judges in a chamber of the Court of Appeals unanimously rejected the appeal.

The former president can still further delay the process by going to the full Court of Appeals and, ultimately, to the Supreme Court itself. Even if he loses all his resources, he will have gained time if he gets the case put on hold. If Trump were to win the election, he could order the charges dropped or even grant himself a pardon.

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The prosecutor lashes out in his writing this Wednesday against that strategy: “His personal interest in postponing trial proceedings must be weighed against two powerful countervailing considerations: the government's interest in fully presenting its case without undue delay; and the public's compelling interest in a prompt resolution of the case,” says

Trump's lawyers said that holding a months-long criminal trial against the former president and candidate in the middle of the election season would “radically disrupt President Trump's ability to campaign against President Biden.” “The order of the District of Columbia Circuit [que deniega su inmunidad y dice que se le someta a juicio] thus threatens immediate irreparable harm to First Amendment interests. [que consagra la libertad de expresión] of President Trump and tens of millions of American voters, who have the right to hear President Trump's campaign message while they decide how to cast their vote in November,” they added in their writing.

Jack Smith counters that it's just the other way around: “The charges here relate to the petitioner's alleged efforts to disenfranchise tens of millions of voters,” he says. “The Nation has a compelling interest in seeing the charges brought to trial,” he adds.

The prosecutor does not want to waste time. He tells the Court that if, alternatively, he is inclined to review Trump's immunity claim, he should take on the case now and expedite its processing.

The discussion about immunity refers to the Washington case in which the former president has been charged with trying to alter the result of the 2020 elections, which he lost to Joe Biden, to cling to power. However, the judges' doctrine can be extended to all four charges for 91 alleged crimes against him.

Trump's defense argued that he could not even be tried for ordering a special forces commando to assassinate his political rivals. Both the judge handling the case and the Court of Appeals rejected the former president's immunity in very strong terms.

“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,” Judge Chutkan said in first instance. instance.

“For purposes of this criminal case, former President Trump has become Citizen Trump, with all the defenses of any other criminal defendant. But any executive immunity that could have protected him while he served as president no longer protects him against this accusation,” said the ruling by the three judges of the Court of Appeals. “It would be a surprising paradox if the president, who has the ultimate constitutional duty of ensuring faithful compliance with the laws, were the only position capable of challenging them with impunity,” the judges developed in the foundations of the decision. “We cannot accept that the position of the presidency places its former occupants above the law forever,” she indicated in another of her sentences.

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