I’m not kidding. From the headline you might think you’ve accidently logged into The Onion but it’s for real. Team Trump filed their response to Jack Smith with SCOTUS. Today. WTF? Hence my question of whether the world has gone mad. Or if the earth has been sucked into an alternate universe. Trump, the master of milking delay after delay in every court proceeding he’s even been involved in moving with speed? Not waiting days for SCOTUS to get fed up and tell him “You’ve got X number of days to respond to Jack Smith’s last filing? But it’s true. Granted, normal practice in these situation is that at this stage the response would be filed within a few days. But this is Trump we’re talking about. He/his lawyers beat the clock. And without even being told to do so!
That weird sound you’ve been hearing is hell freezing over.
I’ve spent the day in the world of Trump’s legal problems. Started out writing about how Trump’s day got off to a bad start. He chose to attend his court hearing in NYC and the first thing the judge said was the trial that had been scheduled for March 25 WILL start jury selection that day. (It would get worse for Trump as that motions hearing proceeded) Down in Georgia the gambit of disqualifying Fani Willis had led to a court hearing and that whole case seemed in trouble. After a rough start for the prosecution THAT turned against Trump. Whoopie! So I set about collecting my thoughts to write about that and while I was doing so saw a banner on my muted TV screen saying Trump’s lawyers had filed their final motion with SCOTUS.
You can read more about it in this write-up in USA Today but rest assured SCOTUS now has all the “paperwork” it needs to consider whether to grant Trump’s request for a stay of the DC case on Jan. 6 charges and ultimately a Writ of Certiorari to hear his ridiculous “Presidential Immunity” appeal. As you might expect, Team Trump projects, asserting Smith is the one trying to game the system, accusing him of creating “the appearance of partisanship.” But they were just getting started:
“As before, there is no mystery about the Special Counsel’s motivation,” they wrote. “Commentators across the political spectrum point to the obvious −the Special Counsel seeks to bring President Trump to trial and to secure a conviction before the November election in which President Trump is the leading candidate against President Biden.”
You can read the linked article (it will only take a few minutes) but for me the real news is that today is Thursday. Late Thursday where I live but this filing went to SCOTUS I gather before the close of business today. Here’s why this matters so much. Tomorrow, Friday the Justices will be holding their final morning conference of the week. Before a holiday weekend. That means even if they want to take a little time they’ll have everything they need in their hot little hands to start talking about a scorching hot potato I still think they want to toss to someone else as quickly as they can.
I doubt they’ll come to a decision tomorrow but I’m pretty sure given their telling Smith he only had a week to file his motion in response to the request for a stay SCOTUS wants to move fast. Smith didn’t take a week. It only took a few days. Then Trump’s lawyers turn around and in a day file their response to Smith? Again I say WTF? This simply doesn’t happen. Not with Trump when he’s in legal trouble. He could have easily gotten away with letting the week pass and doing nothing. By the end of Tuesday SCOTUS might have sent a “time for you to respond to Smith” directive but it might have taken until late next week. Now? If SCOTUS wants to move fast they can decide next week whether to get involved!
Trump has different teams of lawyers working on different cases. Maybe he was so focused on whether to show up and play “Trump the Intimidator” in NYC or Georgia the DC team couldn’t get his attention. So they went ahead and filed their brief. I suspect sometime this weekend it will dawn on Trump that if things don’t go his way the case could be back in judge Chutkan’s hands by the end of next week!
I just can’t get over this. Trump not milking every day for more delay. Maybe I need to call up George (a fellow Veteran who live on an upper floor in my building) to come down to my apartment and smack me upside the head with a two-by-four. Just to make sure I’m still alive and not caught in some zone between dying and my nervous system shutting down – with weird, nonsensical thoughts being my last ones.
Well, it was already going to be a night where before long we’d be getting primal screams from Trump on Truth Social. This will just add to the magnitude of the meltdown.
But tired as I am I’m not sure I’ll be able to sleep. WHY will be the question that keeps me up. Why all of a sudden did Trump’s lawyers act professionally and respond to SCOTUS in a timely manner? The only reason that comes to mind is they’ve used up all the hours their retainers covered. And despite the apparent Trump takeover of the RNC that if successful will keep the money for lawyers flowing. Then again, it DOES require 160 plus GOPers on the RNC currently to agree to what Trump wants. It might NOT be a done deal.
If anyone else has a better explanation I’m open to hearing it.
There’s really nothing for them to decide. The DC Appeals panel produced a bullet-proof decision denying the Orange Blob his precious “immunity.” They already have the ballot access question to finagle into the result they want, so they may just deny the request for a stay and be done with this mess.
Not to mention that I doubt Smith’s ORIGINAL attempt to bypass the DC Court in the first place won’t be readily forgotten if certain justices really believe there’s any need to “deliberate” the issue. I don’t know if Smith had any idea of how the DC Court would ultimately rule when he tried to fast-track to SCOTUS but I can’t imagine he’s got any truly new material to put before SCOTUS.
taking over the rnc won’t keep the money flowing for long. I think I read that they have around 1o million in the bank. trumps legal bills aren’t just attorneys fees they also include the money he needs for the bonds so he can appeal. given the nature of the fraud case he may not be able to use properties as collateral. together with the Carroll judgement that means he might have to put up close to half a billion dollars. Trump already has the small dollar donors locked up and I still believe the big money people aren’t going to penny up to pay for his legal messes. they will want to see the money go to a campaign and they aren’t the maga morons. they aren’t going to take trumps word that that will be the case or that they will be paid back. they already got screwed in 2016 when Trump used their money to repay himself for the money he loaned his campaign after promising not to do so, not to mention promising to sell finance his run.