If Mom Says No Ask Dad? Trump Takes ‘Presidential Immunity’ Claim To SCOTUS, Asks For Stay

I’m sure we all did this as kids—get excited about something and then go to mom, but she thinks that “something” is too risky and says “no.” I know I did this as a kid, and then I’d go and ask my unsuspecting dad, and he’d say “Sure…go ahead.” And then the parents would have a meeting of the minds and I’d know the meaning of “being in trouble.”

Now, I realize this doesn’t have a heck of a lot to do with Donald Trump, but he keeps getting in trouble, and like any 9-year-old, he tries to use sneaky tricks to get out of trouble.

But now he’s using sneaky tricks with a hint of desperation, because earlier Monday, he urged the Supreme Court to continue keeping his criminal trial on hold while he appeals a ruling by the District of Columbia Court of Appeals which found he doesn’t have immunity from the charges, The Hill reports.

Trump’s appeal could become a landmark case at the High Court since it concerns the bounds of presidential immunity. It also gives the justices the ability to dictate when Trump can head to trial.

As we know, Trump has been trying everything he can to delay his criminal cases, and he’s had one success — having thus far successfully postponed his Washington, D.C. trial date — originally set for March 4 — by initially appealing his immunity claims, per The Hill.

Now this historic request lies at the feet of the Supreme Court justices and the decision could largely determine whether Trump can postpone the trial until after the presidential election.

It’s definitely not the news any of us wants to hear since this would allow him, if he’s elected, to simply pardon himself or direct his Justice Department to drop the prosecution.

Special counsel Jack Smith charged the former president with four federal felonies, each accusing him of conspiring to upend the results of the 2020 election, to which Trump has pleaded not guilty. And his knucklehead lawyers wrote “Conducting a months-long criminal trial of President Trump at the height of election season will radically disrupt President Trump’s ability to campaign against President Biden— which appears to be the whole point of the Special Counsel’s persistent demands for expedition.

Well this is wrong times 2. First, Smith knows Trump is trying to push this past the election, and second, Trump really did try to overturn the 2020 election. A second-grader reading this would understand that.

Sometimes you have to wonder how these people passed their bar exams.

The District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals wholly rejected the ex-president’s claim that a former president enjoys nearly total immunity from criminal prosecution except in cases where they have initially been impeached and convicted.

“For the purpose of this criminal case, former president trump has become citizen trump, with all of the defenses of any other criminal defendant,” the panel for the D.C. Circuit Court of appeals wrote in a 57-page decision.”

“we cannot accept that the office of the presidency places its former occupants above the law for all time thereafter. careful evaluation of these concerns leads us to conclude that prosecution in general or for immunizing former president trump from the specific charges in the indictment.”

The three-judge panel was clearly skeptical, especially since Trump’s attorneys agreed that presidential immunity could even cover actions such as ordering the assassination of a political opponent — kind of like, y’know, Russia, for instance, where this sort of thing isn’t unheard of.

But the judges were also concerned about another thorny issue: The Trump stance holding that presidents must be impeached first would shield future presidents from prosecutions committed as they leave office or for any that are discovered later.

The judges also dealt with one of Trump’s most current complaints — that he’s being unfairly targeted. He’s constantly yelling “witch hunt.” I’m beginning to think it’s his favorite phrase.

“As former president trump acknowledges that this is the first time since the founding that a former president has been federally indicted,” the judges wrote.

“weighing these factors, we conclude that the risk that former presidents will be unduly harassed by federal criminal prosecutions appears slight.”

It is widely expected that the SCOTUS will uphold the lower court’s decision, but in considering the case, it causes further delay for Trump’s trial date, and U.S. District Court Judge Tany Chutkan has said she’ll knock the case back in accordance with the time spent weighing the detail. As it is the lower court took roughly two months between the briefings leading up to the hearing and the decision afterward.

This of course means, a grant by the SCOTUS would swallow up even more time, leading Andrew Weissmann, a former prosecutor on special counsel Robert Mueller’s team, to warn that a delay could push the trial too close to the election season for the Justice Department to work with the case.

“The supreme court would be taking the appeal of the dc circuit immunity decision to affirm it, not to reverse it; but by taking it they would risk in effect giving trump immunity by pushing the trial past the election, and thereby denying the public’s right to speedy trial,” he wrote on X earlier this month.

This, dear readers, is the political canary in the coal mine. We have to hope the Supreme Court will uphold the lower court’s decision, but there is no guarantee here. We have all been gritting our teeth for so long over one man’s unhinged desire to be back in the White House that we only have stumps left. Donald Trump is that nine-year-old who’s trying the “if mom says no ask dad” gambit.

Time for him to get grounded.