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Special Counsel Jack Smith is facing new headwinds in his cases against former President Donald Trump after a decision by U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts last week.
Roberts gave Smith and his prosecutors one week to respond to Trump’s request to halt his federal criminal election-subversion trial while he tried to convince the high court to dismiss the case entirely based on presidential immunity.
Smith has until Tuesday at 5 p.m. to respond to the emergency application that Trump’s attorneys filed at the high court on Monday, according to a brief docket entry from the court on Tuesday morning, Politico noted.
Last week, a three-judge federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., unanimously rejected Trump’s sweeping claim of immunity. However, pending the Supreme Court’s consideration of Trump’s plea for emergency relief, the judges opted not to remand the case to a lower court for trial.
Smith has already pleaded with the courts to settle the immunity dispute as soon as possible, allowing Trump’s trial in Washington, D.C., which was originally scheduled for March 4, to start later this year.
In an attempt to get a quicker resolution, the special counsel asked the Supreme Court to consider the immunity issue in December, even before the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals had reviewed it. However, the justices rejected the request.
“This Court’s immediate review of that question is the only way to achieve its timely and definitive resolution,” Smith wrote in the December filing. “The Nation has a compelling interest in a decision on [Trump’s] claim of immunity from these charges — and if they are to be tried, a resolution by conviction or acquittal, without undue delay.”
Meanwhile, Justice Samuel Alito argued last week that Colorado’s prohibition of Trump’s eligibility to run for president is “quite severe” during a hearing to decide whether kicking him off the state’s 2024 ballot under the guise of “insurrection” is constitutional.
During oral arguments before the nation’s highest court last week, Alito queried Trump’s attorney, Jonathan Mitchell, about whether Colorado was attempting to create legislation that could be applied to other states.
“Suppose there is a country that proclaims again and again and again that the United States is its biggest enemy, and suppose that the president of the United States, for diplomatic reasons, thinks it is in the best interest of the United States to provide funds or release funds so that they can be used by that country, could a state determine that person has given aid and comfort to the enemy and therefore keep that person off of the ballot?” Alito asked.
Mitchell responded that Colorado does not follow the legal doctrine of collateral estoppel or issue preclusion, which forbids a party from re-litigating a matter that has already been determined in a previous court case, so it does not establish a precedent for other states.
LISTEN:
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito smacks Joe Biden during Donald Trump's 14th Amendment Case before SCOTUS.
"Suppose there is a country that proclaims again and again and again that the United States is its biggest enemy, and suppose that the president of the United States for… pic.twitter.com/3s4onZ1ewR
— Conservative Brief (@ConservBrief) February 8, 2024
In December, the highest court in Colorado effectively declared that Trump had engaged in insurrection in connection with the events of January 6, 2021, when his followers stormed the Capitol building amid the certification of the 2020 presidential election results. With a vote of 4–3, the state court declared that it had not reached its decision “lightly” and that it was “mindful of the magnitude and weight of the questions now before us.”
The decision is on hold while the Supreme Court considers an appeal. There hasn’t been a criminal conviction of Trump for insurrection.
The court in Colorado ruled that Trump’s “direct and express efforts, over several months, exhorting his supporters to march to the Capitol to prevent what he falsely characterized as an alleged fraud on the people of this country were indisputably overt and voluntary.”
“Put a swift and decisive end to these ballot-disqualification efforts, which threaten to disenfranchise tens of millions of Americans and which promise to unleash chaos and bedlam,” Trump’s attorneys pleaded with the justices in their opening brief to the court.
