NEWS: SCOTUS will not immediately hear the case over Trump’s immunity claim in connection with the Jan. 6-related federal charges he faces in DC. The DC Circuit, however, has already expedited the appeal to be heard there in early January.
My take: This pushes things a bit, but the DC Circuit arguments are Jan. 9. That appeals court has been very quick in its resolution of these cases, so I imagine we’ll be back to SCOTUS by the end of January. Not what Smith wanted, but not a huge delay. (See also: No noted dissents.)
Ultimately depends on how long it takes Trump's team to appeal, but at least SCOTUS will be waiting for it so I would suspect their response when they get the appeal to be real quick.
That's the point. Even a rushed Appellate court means that there is a good chance the SCOTUS won't even hear the case before the 2025 session. And if the trial is stayed until then...
They delayed it until the DC court of appeals rules on it.
Which won't be until end of January. Then they get involved, stretch it out another 2-3 months.
Trump gets 4-5 months out of it. Skillful assist, but expect experts to worship the wisdom of following precedent or something.
Hypothesis: SCOTUS hands Trump a defeat on the Colorado case (finding Trump ineligible under Disqualification Clause) and tells Trump to pursue tge remedy in the US Constitution (a 2/3 vote in Congress).
SCOTUS political rationale:
1. If the heat is on Congress to deal with Trump, it's not on SCOTUS.
2. It's actually being faithful to the Constitution.
3. If Congress declines to remove the disqualification on Trump, a bunch of legal problems will resolve themselves w/o going to SCOTUS.
#3 amplified:
While prosecutors aren't totally indifferent to Trump's violations of the law, a significant motivation is to prevent Trump from being elected POTUS again.
Once Trump is ineligible to be elected POTUS, cases can be resolved with guilty pleas.
I.e. they are just letting the lower court handle it even though it's going to get appealed, good thing DC is expediting it.
This does not mean SCOTUS will even take it up on appeal. I mean if they don't then DC Circuit opinion will stand
I believe this is unrelated to the CO ballot issue. Jack Smith tried to get SCOTUS to rule immediately on whether Trump has immunity in the Jan 6 case, this ruling means instead it will need to go through the DC appeals Court before presumably coming back to SCOTUS, potentially delaying the trial.
