SCOTUS an accomplice in Trump delay strategy?

…They can’t hide their RED JERSEYS under the black robes

The Supreme Court has decided to hear Trump’s claim of absolute presidential immunity from being held accountable for criminal acts while President.

It took them 2 ½ weeks to make that decision…and they apparently aren’t in a hurry to hear it, pushing the oral arguments out to April 22.

Depending on how quickly after that hearing they issue a decision, and based on their track record, I’d expect they’ll wait till the end of their term (late June/early July) — and then disappear on vacation. (Hope I’m wrong!)

Even if they deny Trump’s immunity claim, the delay caused by taking the case on puts into question whether Trump’s wide-ranging election interference case will be decided, or even heard, before the election…IF EVER.

The Associated Press writes:

“…CAN THE TRIAL HAPPEN BEFORE THE ELECTION? That’s unclear. If the court rejects Trump’s immunity claim, the timing of the justices’ decision will be crucial in determining whether it’s possible for the case to go to jurors before November…[a] decision to fast-track the case means a trial could potentially start by late summer or early fall if the high court quickly rules Trump can face prosecution. But if the court waits weeks to issue its ruling, it’s unclear whether the case could be scheduled or completed before the election. (Emphasis mine.)

The case has been on hold while Trump pursues his immunity appeals, meaning no pre-trial preparations have been taking place since mid-December.¹ U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan is expected to give prosecutors and defense attorneys at least three months to get ready for trial if the case returns to her court. And more pre-trial legal battles are certain even after the case resumes in her court.

The trial is likely to take months, meaning it would likely threaten to run up against the election if it doesn’t begin by August. Special counsel Jack Smith’s team has said the government’s case should take no longer than four to six weeks, but that doesn’t include any defense Trump could put on. And jury selection alone could take weeks.”

SCOTUS could have let the appeals court unanimous decision against Trump stand, given that the DC Court of Appeals unanimously upheld the trial judge’s ruling. In fact, many court observers were surprised by the court’s decision to take it, given the “masterful” (according to very conservative former judge Michael Luttig…listen here) decision written by the DC Appeals Court.

Luttig told MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace: “This is a momentous decision, just to hear this case…There was no reason in this world for the Supreme Court to take this case…. Under the constitutional laws of the United States, there has never been an argument that a former president is immune from prosecution for crimes that he committed while in office.” 

Luttig goes on to express his skepticism that SCOTUS will act quickly enough to ensure that we’ll have a verdict, or even a trial, before we vote in November. Note that Luttig was on George W. Bush’s SCOTUS candidate short list.

But they instead chose to take the case. That means at least four justices voted to take it on. But it takes five justices to order a stay (of any pre-trial hearings or activity, like jury selection), and they did. That means at least five justices were on board with the delay.²

Before we go any further, note that…

• Clarence Thomas’s wife Ginni was up to her neck, no, waaaay over her head, in the coup conspiracy, as we learned from her text messages with then chief-of-staff Mark Meadows. And that John Eastman, the architect of the (failed) plot to have Pence throw out electoral votes and throw the election back to Republican state legislatures, clerked for Justice Thomas during the 1996 session and was in communication with Thomas’s wife as partners in the attempted J-6 coup. (…uhh, why the heck isn’t Thomas recused in this case, Chief Roberts??)

• As young attorneys, THREE CURRENT JUSTICES, Roberts, Kavanaugh, and Barrett, worked on the Bush legal team in Bush v. Gore in 2000 in which another Republican-dominated SCOTUS stole an election with tragic consequences (see Iraq and 2008 financial crisis).

Do they shed their Red jerseys before they don the black robes? I don’t think so.

Unless there’s a leak, we’ll never know how the individual justices voted on this decision. But we know that at least five did…and we know that three of the justices were legal partisans in Bush v. Gore³ (and two of those were Trump appointees), and one’s wife was a J-6 co-conspirator. And still another was Trump’s first SCOTUS appointment. I’m betting that there is…some considerable overlap between those sets.

I am also — again — perplexed and angry at Merrick Garland’s failure to pursue this case from day 1 of his tenure. Nothing was more important. Apparently he didn’t want people calling it a political prosecution.

We’ve seen how his forbearance has quieted Trump, his enablers in Congress, and his cult.

Now its gonna be up to us, the electorate. We better be up to it.

1. Note that the first SCOTUS-implemented delay came in December, when the court ruled against taking the case directly, as Jack Smith had requested, rather than have it go to an appeals court first. Both the the trial judge Chutkan and the appeals court (unanimously) ruled against Trump’s claims of immunity.

2. “The timeline here was a choice, made by the Justices. They chose to give Donald Trump at least two more months of delay. We don’t know how a specific Justice votes on a cert grant. But we do know that at least five Justices voted to hear this case because while it only takes four votes to grant cert, it take five to grant a stay, and the Court’s order, above, continues the stay in the trial court while the appeal is underway.” – Joyce Vance, former United States Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama and currently a Distinguished Professor of the Practice of Law at the University of Alabama law school Joyce Vance in her blog entry today. It is an excellent resource to understand the legal ins-and-outs of this case. Read it at

The Supreme Court Disappoints

3. Roberts, Kavanaugh, and Barrett assisted on Bush v. Gore. https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/17/politics/bush-v-gore-barrett-kavanaugh-roberts-supreme-court/index.html