- The Supreme Court is scheduled to rule on Monday on whether Donald Trump, as a former president, is immune from criminal charges he allegedly made against him for trying to steal the 2020 election.
- Legal experts say the ruling may already be too late to allow further trials before the Nov. 5 election, because pre-trial preparations take months.
WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court will end its term Monday with a decision on its biggest case of the year: whether Donald Trump, as former president, has immunity from being tried for trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Whatever the Supreme Court’s decision in this legal battle, in many ways Trump may already have won the war.
The trial in question still has months of pretrial preparations ahead and could be further delayed even if the judge doesn’t dismiss the charges. Two other pending criminal trials haven’t even been scheduled. In other words, the ruling may already be too late for any of the three pending criminal trials to begin before the Nov. 5 election, legal experts say.
“By dragging this out so long that a trial is unlikely to ever take place, the Supreme Court has already succeeded in effectively granting Mr. Trump immunity, regardless of the outcome of its decision,” Norm Eisen, who served as special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during Trump’s first impeachment trial, and Mike Podhorzer, president of the Project for Defense of Democracies, an election advocacy group, said in a joint statement.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges. Anyone Federal prosecutors in the Biden administration are trying to keep Trump in court and away from campaigning while they try to unseat President Joe Biden by accusing him of meddling in the election. Trump has fought to delay all trials until after the election.
Did the Supreme Court delay President Trump’s immunity lawsuit?
One reason critics of President Trump have complained that the Supreme Court has been slow to act is because the justices have ruled quickly in other high-profile cases.
Special counsel Jack Smith of the Department of Justice asked the Supreme Court in December to immediately reject the immunity request after U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan ruled that Trump should stand trial.
Instead, the Supreme Court waited for the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to rule that Trump did not have immunity, delaying the trial for six months.
Laurence Tribe, professor emeritus of Harvard Law, said the trial is unlikely to take place in October because of how close it is to the election and because the speed with which the Supreme Court has ruled is “inexcusable.”
In contrast, the Supreme Court
- Four days after the June 1971 hearing, the Nixon administration blocked The New York Times from publishing a secret history of the Vietnam War.
- Sixteen days into the hearing in July 1974, he ordered then-President Richard Nixon to turn over secret tapes of White House conversations to the special counsel.
- The day after hearing arguments in December 2000, it ended the voting challenges, effectively handing the election to President George W. Bush.
- Less than a month after hearing arguments on Feb. 8 about removing Trump’s name from the Colorado primary election ballot because of his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, the Senate Democratic leader allowed Trump’s name to remain on the ballot for the Colorado primary election.
What Trump cases are currently underway?
Trump faces three trials, all of which are on hold for various reasons.
The federal election interference trial was scheduled for March 4 but was postponed indefinitely due to an immunity challenge. The Supreme Court will hear the case on a final day of arguments in April and is expected to rule on Monday, the last day of the session.
In Florida, federal prosecutors and the defense are battling over what evidence should be allowed in his trial on charges he concealed classified documents after leaving the White House.
A trial on the classified records had been scheduled for May 20 but was postponed indefinitely due to pretrial arguments over what evidence should be allowed. In early April, prosecutors proposed a July trial, and Trump’s lawyers proposed August. U.S. District Judge Eileen Cannon finished a series of hearings a week ago but was considering holding more, including on whether prosecutors should have been allowed to question one of Trump’s lawyers.
The Justice Department has an informal rule not to prosecute political cases within 60 days of an election, but Attorney Jay Brat told Cannon on March 1 that a fall trial would not violate the rule because the indictment was filed a year ago.
In Georgia, the election fraud charges are on hold until the state Supreme Court decides whether to remove the prosecutor, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee is continuing to hear pretrial motions. But the state Court of Appeals has set arguments for Oct. 4, leaving little time for a decision or trial before the election.
Seven months to prepare a defense? Election is November 5th
Chutkan’s trial is unlikely to begin before the election because he promised Trump seven months to prepare a defense after he was indicted on Aug. 1. The defense stalled the trial while he appealed a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit that said he could not avoid the indictment.
Chutkan suspended pretrial preparations on December 13, 134 days after the indictment, leaving 81 more days of preparation time before the original trial date.
The clock starts again on Monday, putting the start date at around Sept. 20. The trial is expected to last six weeks and could finish before the election.
But if other appeals are filed while the case is being prepared for trial, the trial could be postponed indefinitely.
Trump is expected to argue that at least one of the four counts against him is invalid based on Friday’s Supreme Court ruling, which ordered the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to reconsider an obstruction count against Joseph Fisher, an alleged rioter in the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, because the statute was written to apply to the destruction of documents, but Fisher has not been accused of doing so. Trump can seek a reconsideration himself.
Similarly, the Supreme Court could order lower courts to reconsider the election interference charges against Trump based on his immunity claim, but that too could take time, and he could appeal a ruling on whether the charges are valid.
Whatever the Supreme Court’s decision, the countdown may not begin immediately. Appeals courts typically formally notify lower courts of their decisions in “orders,” which allow them to resume proceedings. The justices could order Chutkan to resume “immediately,” meaning immediately. But Sarah Isgur, a Harvard Law School graduate who served as Justice Department spokesperson under Trump, said on Wednesday’s Advisory Opinions podcast that Trump’s order to resume the countdown could take up to a month.
Trump’s conviction in New York is likely to be his only one before the Nov. 5 election.
The three pending lawsuits have been delayed by President Trump’s vigorous defense, with only the New York hush money trial having been resolved.
Trump was convicted on 34 counts of falsifying business records for trying to conceal payments to his former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, for paying porn actress Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about an alleged sexual affair with Trump before the 2016 election.
Sentencing on the felony charges is scheduled for July 11. Trump has vowed to appeal.
