Delay, Delay, Delay: Trump's Escape Route from Justice & Accountability for His Crimes

I'm gonna beat Biden's FBI, Deep State, and Courts

(Gather around and trust me I'm gonna win)

No comparison between Sleepy Joe and Me

(Don’t trust the left media only trust me)

This startling headline from VOX.com is one of two things: (1) It serves and excuses Trump from any part of the January 6 insurrection, (and yes, it was an attempted insurrection), or (2) It nails him and holds him accountable for that horrible day and justice will be served (formatted to fit the blog):

“The Supreme Court will soon decide whether to sabotage Trump’s most important criminal trial”

The Supreme Court is about to have two Trump-sized problems to deal with.

First to deal with is the 14^th Amendment case:

On February 8, the Nine Justices heard oral arguments in Trump v. Anderson, the case in which Colorado’s Supreme Court held that former Trump is ineligible for the presidency because of his incitement of the January 6 insurrection under Section 3 of the 14^th Amendment.

Based on the justices’ questions at oral arguments, the Court appears likely to rule in favor of Trump — on narrow grounds that states are not the right forum to determine whether a presidential candidate is disqualified from office or not.

Second case is his demand for immunity for all 91 charges:

Recently a federal appeals court rejected Trump’s argument that he is immune from prosecution for any “official acts he engaged as president.” 

This is one of the least surprising developments in modern legal history, because Trump’s arguments were truly outlandish. Among other things, his lawyer told a judges “that the former president could not have been prosecuted even if he ordered SEAL Team 6 to assassinate his political rivals  unless Trump were also impeached and convicted by the Senate first.”

How it could play out:

Often, when a federal case is on appeal to a higher court, the trial court loses jurisdiction over the case until the appeal is resolved. That’s what happened in this case of Trump.

Judge Tanya Chutkan has already announced once that she will have to postpone Trump’s March 4 trial thanks to the delay caused by this appeal. 

Every delay, moreover is a big win for Trump. If he can delay his trials long enough, he can avoid being convicted of a crime before voters have to weigh in on whether he should be president this November. And should he prevail in that election, he can simply order the Justice Department to drop its prosecutions against him and even pardon himself.

In any event, the DC Circuit, when it issued its opinion rejecting Trump’s immunity claim, also took some steps to prevent Trump from dragging this case out until it is too late. When an appeals court is finished with a case, it issues a document known as a mandate that formally returns control over the case back to the trial court. 

This process takes several weeks, but DC Circuit issued an order expediting this process. Basically, the order said the mandate would issue at the end of the day on Monday, February 12 unless Trump sought an order from the Supreme Court asking the justices to delay issuing it. Now that Trump has made that request deadline, the DC Circuit’s order says that Judge Chutkan will regain control over the case upon “the Supreme Court’s final disposition of Trump’s request to delay the mandate.”

The Court will probably give Special Prosecutor Jack Smith’s office a brief period of time to respond to Trump’s request. Then the justices will issue one of the most consequential orders of this election cycle.

Three ways the Court could resolve the question of whether to delay Trump’s trial or not:

The best-case scenario for Smith, and for anyone else to see Trump face justice is: (1) The Supreme Court denies Trump’s request immediately, or:  (2) The Court could issue a rare order, called a summary affirmance that effectively gives the justices’ blessing to the DC Circuit’s immunity decision. Either one of those two outcomes would return this case to Judge Chutkan right away.

The best outcome for Trump is: (1) The Court grants his request to delay his trial without qualification, or (2) The Court could simply sit on his request for a very long time without taking any action on it, and thus preventing the DC Circuit from issuing its mandate.

In either of these scenarios, Trump’s trial is delayed, and such a delay could last a very long time. If the Court granted an indefinite stay, that order would likely remain in effect until the justices fully consider and decide the question of whether Trump is immune from prosecution.

Under the Court’s rules, Trump wouldn’t even have to formally ask the justices to give this case full consideration until 90 days after the DC Circuit’s judgment, and an unqualified stay would remain in effect during this entire period. But, there are also ways for Trump to delay filing this request even longer.

Then the justices would have to receive briefing, hear oral arguments, and write opinions — all while the time between now and Election Day is slipping away.

Then there’s that third possibility.

The justices could grant the stay, but also call for an expedited hearing on whether Trump is actually immune from prosecution — allowing them to decide this question and lift the stay in a matter of weeks, rather than months.

But even a brief stay would reward Trump’s tactic of raising absurd legal arguments on appeal and then using the mere fact that these arguments are before an appeals court to delay his criminal trial.

So, again, Trump’s legal argument is that he would be immune from prosecution even if he had turned the U.S. military into a death squad targeting his enemies, and certainly we don’t need the Supreme Court of the United States to tell us he’s not allowed to do that.

My 2 Cents: “Art of Con” in play with Trump v. the Voters. 

Will his ploy of delay, delay, and delay really work? 

Boy, I pray is does not. 

Thanks for stopping by.