On Monday, Special Counsel Jack Smith requested the Supreme Court take up the question of presidential immunity in the election interference case against former president Donald Trump. It took only a few hours for the court to grant that request.
Now, you might be under the impression that such a quick result would greatly please Democrats. But there’s a major hitch. It seems that the justices forgot to ask Rachel Maddow to plan their schedules. Though the court expedited the case, arguments won’t be heard until April, with a decision likely to come in late June — making it unlikely, though not impossible, that there will be a trial before the 2024 election.
With this news, scores of left-wing pundits accused the justices of conspiring to help Trump win the election. By granting Smith’s request, Chris Hayes complained it “was a clear, unmistakable sign from the MAGA majority of the Trump-created court that they are with him. That they are going to use their power to make sure that he does not face trial in an election year for attempting to end American democracy.”
Sometimes, I wonder if Hayes and the others who happily watch constitutional protections and procedures dismantled when it suits their partisan needs know they are engaged in a mass act of projection.
Consider that Hayes demands SCOTUS render a judgment on a historic immunity case on a schedule that comports with the partisan objectives of Democrats – namely, putting Trump in front of a judge at the height of a 2024 presidential campaign. Or, in other words, Hayes wants the court to do the very thing he contends is corrupt for the court to do.
Notice, as well, that a “MAGA majority” court can only be legitimate if it rules in favor of the left. Like every institution, the contemporary left’s consequentialist outlook demands partisan outcomes. By “Trump-created,” of course, Hayes means the duly elected president nominated justices, and then the duly elected Senate confirmed them as prescribed by the Constitution. The self-styled guardians of “democracy” have spent years delegitimizing members of the court with a slew of smears and ginned-up non-controversies. Beats debating issues, I guess.
While rejecting SCOTUS as a corrupt institution is the norm, questioning the agenda or integrity of Biden’s DOJ, run by political appointees, is to attack the very edifice of democracy. Still, it should not go unnoticed that the Jan. 6 riots occurred in early 2021 — which is to say, over three years ago. You should be highly skeptical that Donald Trump’s prosecution had landed perfectly to coincide with the presidential election, thus promising maximum political impact by happenstance.
Indeed, the panic over timing reads like an explicit admission that the Trump prosecution is integral to the president’s reelection hopes. Biden basically admitted as much when he grumbled (and telegraphed) to Merrick Garland that the AG wasn’t acting in an aggressive enough partisan manner.
More importantly, though this might be tough for progressives to accept, Trump has every right to contest the prosecution’s charges, to appeal to higher courts, and to utilize any arguments that delay the trial for his own benefit. Trump has not been convicted of anything.
Because even if you believe that Trump’s claims of presidential immunity are wrong — and this non-lawyer doesn’t really see how it will stick (though the election interference charges against the former president seem even more rickety to me) — the case marks the first time in history that the Supreme Court will render an opinion on the criminal prosecutions of the former president.
That’s a big deal. The court has every reason to get it right and no reason to ensure that Democrats get their photo ops.