WASHINGTON – Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday to expedite a decision on former President Donald Trump’s claims for presidential immunity in the 2020 election interference case.
Smith urged the justices to rule on a case that would normally first go to a lower federal appeals court, arguing that another appeal would likely mean the Supreme Court would not hear the case until its term beginning in fall 2024, delaying the process even further.
Such a delay would result in a Supreme Court decision coming at the height of the general election, in which Trump is expected to once again be the Republican presidential nominee.
A final response from the Supreme Court would ensure that the trial can begin as scheduled on March 4, 2024, Smith said.
“The United States recognizes that this is an extraordinary request,” Smith wrote. “This is an extraordinary case.”
In a statement from the Trump campaign, an anonymous spokesman reiterated Trump’s position that the prosecution was politically motivated.
“Joe Biden’s corrupt henchman, the deranged Jack Smith, is so obsessed with interfering in the 2024 presidential election to prevent President Trump from re-occupying the Oval Office, which the President intends, that Smith is willing to make a desperate attempt by running to the Supreme Court and trying to bypass the appeals process,” the spokesperson said.
Judgment of the Regional Court
The case is one of four criminal charges the former president is facing as he campaigns for another term in the White House, alleging that he attempted to illegally overturn his 2020 re-election defeat.
Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan said disputed Trump justified his request to dismiss the lawsuit by arguing that as a former president he was protected from criminal prosecution and had already been acquitted in an impeachment trial by the U.S. Senate.
Trump card Appeal filed this ruling last week to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, an intermediate court between the District Court and the Supreme Court, and asked the trial court to Interrupt procedure while the appeal process is still ongoing.
Trump’s legal team filed a Movement to dismiss the case due to presidential immunity.
The scheduling situation is similar to the one the courts faced as President Richard Nixon’s 1974 trial date on Watergate-related charges approached, Smith said Monday. In that case, the Supreme Court accepted the prosecution’s argument and expedited the appeal, he wrote, adding that the high court should make a similar decision for Trump.
“It is of the utmost public importance that the defendant’s immunity claims be resolved as expeditiously as possible – and, if the defendant is not immune, that he receive a fair and speedy trial on those charges,” Smith wrote. “The public, the defendant, and the government are entitled to nothing less.”
Prosecutors also asked The District of Columbia Court of Appeals decided on Monday to expedite Trump’s appeal to that court if the Supreme Court refuses to rule on the matter.
Election interference and other criminal charges
A federal grand jury accused Trump was indicted in August on four counts for his alleged role in deliberately attempting to manipulate the outcome of the 2020 presidential election through a series of illegal acts and false statements that culminated in the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
The charges, brought in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, include conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction or attempted obstruction of an official proceeding, and conspiracy to violate rights.
The 45-page accusation details false statements made by Trump and unnamed co-conspirators about the election results in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, and the subsequent scheme of false electors the group devised for those states.
The indictment also details Trump’s pressure campaign against former Vice President Mike Pence to get him to overturn the election results.
Trump faces four criminal charges in New York state as well as a civil case over his business dealings as he leads in several polls ahead of the 2024 Republican presidential primary. Less than five weeks before the nation’s first Republican presidential primary in Iowa, according to a Des Moines Register/NBC News/Mediacom poll published on Monday found that Trump is the first choice for 51 percent of caucus participants surveyed.
In addition to the federal election fraud charges in Washington, DC, scheduled to go to trial in March, Trump faces another criminal trial in New York State in March. alleged hush money payments to a porn star.
The former president also faces criminal proceedings in federal court in Florida in May. Criminal charges They claim that at the end of his presidency, he removed confidential documents from the White House and improperly stored them at Mar-a-Lago, his South Florida estate.
A trial date for a Georgia case has not yet been set. accusation It alleges that Trump and several co-defendants engaged in organized crime to manipulate the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.
Trump’s lawyers did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment Monday.
