Friday, December 22, 2023

On Our Supreme Court and Delay

This is a post I put on Facebook today. 

Our contemptible Supreme Court just gave American fascist Donald Trump a major windfall. The trial court judge in the federal January 6 case against him had rejected Trump's absurd contention that he is immune from prosecution for anything he did in connection with the insurrection of that date because everything was part of his role as president. Trump appealed to the Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, the first court to which decisions of federal trial courts in DC are usually appealed. Special Counsel Jack Smith, the prosecutor in the case, asked the US Supreme Court to accept review of the case immediately rather than after a Court of Appeals decision. Trump's appeal is clearly part of his overall strategy of delay. Smith was trying to speed up final decision of the issue of Trump's claimed immunity and thus to minimize the delay Trump so desperately wants. Today the Supreme Court denied Smith's request. It will not review the trial court's decision at this time. If it ever reviews the decision at all, it will wait until after a decision by the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. That intermediate appellate court is fast tracking the case to some extent, but the Supreme Court's refusal to take the case now necessarily means that Trump gets more of the delay he wants. The question Trump raises of immunity, frivolous as it may be in the case of insurrection, is one of immense national importance. It is one the Supreme Court should review and rule on. It is one that the Supreme Court almost certainly will consider after the DC Circuit court decision. There simply is no doubt that the court should have taken the case now. It didn't, and Trump and his supporters are probably dancing in the streets. All the rest of us can do is hope and pray that this case will reach a final resolution before next year's presidential election, as unlikely as that is beginning to appear.

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