SCOTUS To Appeals Court… PLEASE Don’t Make US Decide Trump’s Immunity!

I firmly believe that every single day, multiple times a day SCOTUS Justices pray some variation of the following:

Please God, let the DC Appeals Court write such a strong opinion, one even stronger than the original ruling from District Court judge Chutkan. Her opinion denying Trump’s claim of Presidential Immunity from criminal prosecution was a thing of beauty. She nailed it. So I, and for that matter the other Justices want NO part of this. None. Zero. NADA. It’s political plutonium and we want it as far away as possible. The DC Court of Appeals will have to uphold it and I ask you keep them from tinkering around and muddying up judge Chutkan’s work. Please give us a GREAT reason to issue one our standard one-line denial of cert when Trump appeals his inevitable loss at the Court of Appeals. Let their opinion be SO strong that pundits will marvel at how screwed Trump is, so much so that NO Justice could find any fault in it and overturn it. Yes, I know I and my fellow Justices will catch some heat for dodging the question. But there’s plenty of controversial cases in the works already, not to mention the primaries starting and if WE don’t have to say anything then most of the heat afterwards will be on those appellate judges. So PLEASE God, let US off the hook. Pretty Please even!

Something like that. Each and every one of them including Thomas and Alito who have been busy little bees trying to find a way to take away other rights. They are all in a snit over the crap they’re taking from their fellow Federalist Society pals. Who should have known better but swallowed their argument that the Dobbs decision would create a couple of months of firestorm and people would move on. Instead as you know it’s cost the GOP election after election It could very well cost them the WH again come November. And with another four years of a Democratic President, well neither Thomas or Alito are spring chickens. That solid 6-3 majority the Fascist Federalist Society spent decades building could quickly turn into a 5-4 split with THEM being on the wrong side of that number. Not to mention Roberts who cares so much about HIS legacy might decide to help undo some of the damage he’s done.

By now I assume if you’re reading this you’re familiar with the main points. For anyone who wants a brush-up NPR did a nice review just before Christmas. It’s short and concise and only takes a couple of minutes to read.  The two main points are does Trump, as he claims have “Presidential Immunity for life”, and whether he’s being subjected to legal double jeopardy because he was impeached and “tried” in the Senate. That second point is laughable. The first? Almost so. Trump has no Constitutional basis on which to make such a claim, nor legal precedent for that matter.

If anything legal precedent is against him, going back to Watergate and a unanimous SCOTUS decision saying that yes, in an investigation of whether criminal acts were alleged to have taken place a subpoena for evidence had to be complied with. So Nixon turned over the tapes.  Lest we forget, when Inspector Javert Ken Starr was after Bill Clinton he pursued potential criminal wrongdoing (i.e. whether Lewinsky was “bribed” with a job offer from Vernon Jordan, whether Clinton had obstructed justice) and forced Clinton into a deposition. And now? Judges have already ruled on the question of whether Trump was acting in his “official capacity” or as a candidate and determined as a matter of law it was the latter. Not that it actually makes a difference. But the best part, which I wrote about yesterday is that Trump himself (via his lawyers) already made the case against himself in another case. Before SCOTUS!

Trump doesn’t have a valid argument and they already know it. They know it.  They just don’t want to have to say it, much less in a formal opinion that will become precedent. They know all too well how in 2000 the per curiam SCOTUS opinion in Bush v Gore hurt the Court’s reputation. Even that extraordinary tidbit that in nice legal terms said “this is a one-time thing folks, so don’t go using anything in this as precedent” blew up in their faces. Long before Trump I’m sure John Roberts has woken up in a cold sweat from nightmares that like his predecessor William Rehnquist he will be branded with a similarly infamous opinion being issues under his own tenure as Chief Justice.

Trump’s immunity appeal is the last thing SCOTUS, which in a short period of time went from being the most trusted institution in DC dropping down to where they could find themselves in Congressional approval territory wants on their plate.  Yes, Trump will howl and scream at his rallies over “his” Justices not bailing him out. I for one am not sure that will resonate with the MAGAs who’ve heard him complain before about SCOTUS not bailing him out on multiple appeals he’s gotten before them. Between the primaries, and the actual DC trial if it gets back on track SCOTUS not bailing Trump out will get lost in the noise of a host of MAGA grievances. Just one more on the pile so to speak.

However, IF SCOTUS actually hears the case and issues it’s own ruling then instead of most of the heat being on Judge Chutkan and the Court of Appeals it will all be on them! That’s why I say they want no part of it. When denying certiorari SCOTUS almost always does so with a single sentence. No explanation and pundits will go on to note how few cases SCOTUS actually hears, that most law is made by appellate courts and so on. I think MAGA voters will have other fish to fry and let’s face it, come March (or perhaps April) almost all Trump’s venom will be aimed at judge Tanya Chutkan who will be in charge of his DC trial.

She WILL be in charge and you know damn well that Trump won’t be able to contain himself over a WOMAN, and even worse (to him) BLACK woman wielding authority over him. You think the slow burn he did when Obama roasted him at the WH Correspondent’s dinner was something? Just imagine HOURS of it for Trump, day after day of looking up at the bench at a smart (way the hell smarter than him) capable judge running the show and slapping down both him and his lawyers to move things along. That alone should be reason to have cameras in the courtroom! (On the plus side maybe the steam boiling out of Trump will kill his stench)

Everyone it seems has marked their calendars for the 9th. I suppose I’ll be paying attention to the news that day to see if anything we don’t already know comes up during oral arguments. Or if pundits have any memorable insights regarding the questions the judges on the panel ask and the responses. However, there’s other dates that are far more important lurking beyond the 9th and we have no idea of what they are. First is how quickly the Court of Appeals panel will issue its ruling. Second is how quickly the full Appeals Court will, as expected deny an En Banc hearing. Then there’s the matter of how long SCOTUS will take to decide whether to grant cert/hear the case. Even if as I think will happen they say no and let the appellate decision stand precious days, or even weeks could go by before they do so.

However, if I’m write about what I’ve written hear and SCOTUS wants nothing to do with this mess (especially since they probably won’t be able to dodge the ballot access issue) they will want it off their plate pronto. Within two or three days they’ll decide. With luck this will all be well before the end of January and we’ll see Trump’s fat orange ass sitting in judge Chutkan’s courtroom sometime in March.