OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
The U.S. Supreme Court could make it significantly harder, if not impossible, for Special Counsel Jack Smith to continue prosecuting Donald Trump should they rule in the former president’s favor regarding his claims of immunity.
That’s according to legal analyst Jeffrey Rosen, a law professor at George Washington University, who discussed the case on CNN.
He said that should the nation’s highest court rule in favor of Trump , that would make Smith’s case infinitely more difficult to prosecute and win.
“There’s a centrally important case in the Supreme Court where the Court’s going to decide whether the core of Jack Smith’s charges involving obstruction of justice are consistent with Constitution and the law or not,” he told CNN.
He added: “If they throw those out, that’s going to be a stake in the heart of the Jack Smith case. It won’t prevent it, but it’ll make it much harder to pursue.”
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In addition, Rosen talked about how the timing of Smith’s cases against Trump could also be disrupted.
“The Jack Smith timing depends on, first, what the Supreme Court does—is it going to rehear immunity or just uphold the D.C. circuit?” Rosen explained.
“But then next month there’s a centrally important case in the Supreme Court where the court’s going to decide whether the core of Jack Smith’s charges involving obstruction of justice are consistent with the Constitution and the law or not,” the report added.
If SCOTUS rules on behalf of the defendants, he argued that it will also call into question the use of the law to prosecute those charged about the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol Building.
The case is Joseph W. Fischer v. United States, and it pertains to the argued misapplication of 18 U.S.C. § 1512, obstruction of an official proceeding, to January 6 cases.
Fritz Ulrich, an attorney representing Fischer, told Newsweek that he will “argue for a narrow construction of Section 1512(c)(2) consistent with its language and Congress’ expressed purpose in enacting it.”
“As far as the effect on the other January 6 cases that have a Section 1512(c)(2) count, nothing will happen at the argument that would affect them,” Ulrich said. “But we may be able to discern how some of the justices view the statutory language at issue.”
Earlier this month, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) joined 23 other GOP senators in calling for the Supreme Court to block the Biden administration from using its interpretation of the law to target what amounts to political opponents.
“The Biden administration’s pursuit of its political opponents must be stopped,” the Arkansas Republican said in a statement. “Their strained interpretation of the law would criminalize vast swaths of everyday political conduct and violate the First Amendment—which Congress never granted, and no administration should have the power to lock up political opponents for 20 years for merely trying to ‘influence’ Congress.”
The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments in the Fischer case on April 16.
Last week, Smith faced new headwinds in his cases against Trump after a decision by Chief Justice John Roberts.
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.
Previously, 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.
