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Legal and political experts were stunned by the Supreme Court announcing Wednesday it will take up Donald Trump’s claim of presidential immunity, despite there being no contradiction in the lower courts. Compounding experts’ surprise and concern over granting certiorari was the length of time it took to announce the decision, and that they will not hear arguments until April 22.
“The Supreme Court heard and decided Bush v. Gore in THREE DAYS. THAT was expediting a case of national importance,” noted Tristan Snell, the former New York State prosecutor who led the successful investigation and $25 million prosecution of Donald Trump’s Trump University. “The Supreme Court apparently now thinks expediting means THREE MONTHS. Clearest evidence yet that SCOTUS is corrupt and broken.”
Professor of law and MSNBC legal analyst Andrew Weissmann, the former FBI General Counsel who served at DOJ for decades, asked: “Why on god’s green earth did the S Ct [Supreme Court] not take the case earlier when the Special Counsel sought review directly from the District Court? They have really played into Trump’s hands.”
He adds: “The Supreme Court is going straight for the capillaries: an issue the DC criminal case does not raise, namely the outer bounds of a presidential immunity doctrine.”
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Weissman Thursday morning noted that the Supreme Court’s actions essentially make Trump “de facto immune.”
“By granting the stay, [SCOTUS] is essentially saying that [Trump] is de facto immune…And I think it ends up being that they’ve given a win to Trump here, and I think they’re gonna give a win to Trump in the Colorado case as well.”
— @AWeissmann_ on Trump’s immunity case pic.twitter.com/ixZSuwSgc2
— Morning Joe (@Morning_Joe) February 29, 2024
Foreign policy, national security, and political affairs analyst and author David Rothkopf replied, “I think you have answered your own question. The only reason to handle this the way they did is to, at best, play Trump’s delay game and, at worst, set the stage for one of the most indefensible, corrupt decisions (or outcomes) in US history.”
“Those who did not understand the urgency of stopping the threat posed by Trump, MAGA and the dark money right, those who did not actively hold them accountable with every available institutional tool, may have been the undoing of American democracy…no matter their intentions,” he noted.
“Let’s not beat around the bush, decision by the Supreme Court to hear the Trump immunity case is outrageous and, at its heart, fundamentally corrupt,” Rothkopf also wrote. “The Appeals Court decision was bullet proof and there is no case Trump has any sort of immunity. The decision not to hear it until late April makes further significant trial delays likely. They are deliberately delaying the trial without any reasonable legal reason to do so. This is a political decision and, in my estimation, an ugly one.”
“If a special counsel had been appointed early in 2021,” Rothkopf also wrote, “if Trump obstruction of justice had be prosecuted, if Trump had not been granted special treatment on his theft of classified documents, if the classified documents case had been brought in DC as it should have been, Trump might very well be in jail now.”
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He also pointed to this monologue from MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, calling it “correct.”
.@chrislhayes: The SCOTUS order “was a clear unmistakable sign from the MAGA majority of the Trump-created court that they are with him. That they are going to use their power to make sure that he does not face trial in an election year for attempting to end American democracy.” pic.twitter.com/fgrrP0tEw0
— All In with Chris Hayes (@allinwithchris) February 29, 2024
University Professor Emeritus at Harvard University Laurence Tribe blasted “the SCOTUS decision to slow-walk Trump’s outrageous immunity claim — the claim everyone knows would be rejected 9-0 by any self-respecting court.”
Noting the Supreme Court could have taken up the case back in December, Tribe told CNN, “There’s nothing new under the sun” in this case. “It doesn’t make any sense to stretch this out this way.”
“We can be sure that they want to use this case to settle a whole broad range of issues, contrary to their supposed practice of deciding no more than you must decide. In fact, the Chief Justice once famously said, if we don’t have to decide something, that means we have to avoid deciding it. He’s obviously violated that mandate here and the struggle within the court results in injustice for the nation.”
Tribe also slammed the Court for choosing to announce it will decide “the broadest possible question.” He suggests they could stretch it out even more, by taking the case, hearing it, then sending it back to the lower courts again.
Harvard Law School professor & constitutional scholar @TribeLaw joins Anderson to discuss the Supreme Court agreeing to hear the former President’s immunity claim. pic.twitter.com/L0pIsNhGRA
— Anderson Cooper 360° (@AC360) February 29, 2024
Daily Beast columnist and “recovering attorney” Wajahat Ali observed: “A thoroughly corrupt Supreme Court with right-wing justices bought out by conservative billionaires and beholden to Christian nationalism should not be expected to side with justice, the rule of law, or democracy. Elections matter.”
CNN Senior Supreme Court Analyst Joan Biskupic on Wednesday said, The fact that they delayed this order … suggests that they certainly did not embrace the urgency that Special Counsel Jack Smith tired to impose upon them, way back in December.”
“Former President Trump’s effort to run the clock has a partner in the Supreme Court at this point,” she notes.
“Former President Trump’s effort to run the clock has a partner in the Supreme Court at this point.” pic.twitter.com/bjgbTxA1RP
— Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) February 28, 2024
Watch the videos above or at this link.
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