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UPDATE (Dec. 21, 2023, 11:16 a.m. ET): Special counsel Jack Smith on Thursday filed a reply brief to the Supreme Court regarding Donald Trump’s presidential immunity claim in his federal election subversion case. Trump filed his response a day earlier to Smith’s request for the Supreme Court to leapfrog a federal court of appeals and weigh in on the immunity issue.
“The public interest in a prompt resolution of this case favors an immediate, definitive decision by this Court,” Smith wrote in his Thursday brief. The Supreme Court could now respond at any time to Smith’s petition to immediately hear the case.
File this one under unsurprising: Donald Trump doesn’t want the U.S. Supreme Court to jump in early and decide his immunity appeal in the federal election interference case right now. In his opposition brief Wednesday to special counsel Jack Smith’s petition, the former president basically asked the justices: What’s the big rush?
Recall, Trump himself launched the immunity claim, which he lost in the district court and then appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, where the case is proceeding on a fast track, with briefs due over the next couple weeks and oral argument set for Jan. 9. But ahead of the potential March trial in Washington, Smith wants to leapfrog the circuit court and get the justices to take the case now and decide whether Trump has presidential immunity.
Trump said in his Supreme Court opposition brief, among other things, that the immunity issue's importance “calls for it to be resolved in a cautious, deliberative manner — not at breakneck speed.” His case is on hold pending the issue's resolution.
Of course, Trump wants to delay the case as much as possible, in the hopes of winning the 2024 election first, which would empower him to crush the case. (On a not entirely unrelated note, the justices may soon be resolving whether the leading GOP presidential candidate is even eligible to run in that election, following the Colorado Supreme Court ruling Tuesday that said he’s disqualified.)
The next move is up to the U.S. Supreme Court, which has discretion over whether to take the case. If the justices deny early review, that doesn’t mean they’re staying out of it forever — it would almost certainly come back to them after the circuit court rules on the matter. But they could agree to step in now, if only to get it over with sooner rather than later.
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