Special prosecutor asks Supreme Court not to paralyze Trump’s trial in Washington International

Special prosecutor Jack Smith has asked the Supreme Court to allow progress in the process for Donald Trump’s efforts to change the outcome of the 2020 presidential election in Washington, which he lost to Joe Biden. Prosecutors oppose Trump’s request that the case be put on hold while judges decide whether the former president has immunity from prosecution for alleged crimes committed in the exercise of his office.

The complainant has filed a 40-page brief before the Supreme Court with his position against the stoppage. “The alleged crimes strike at the heart of our democracy,” the document alleged. “The President’s alleged criminal scheme to subvert the election and thwart the peaceful transfer of power to his successor should be the last place to recognize a novel form of blanket immunity from federal criminal law,” he added.

“Delays in resolving these charges threaten to frustrate the public interest in speedy and fair adjudication, a compelling interest in all criminal cases, and the particular national importance this case has, as it involves federal criminal charges for an alleged allegation against a former president. The overturning of the results of a presidential election criminal attempts, including exercise of official authority,” he argued.

Trump has already managed to delay the process and so far has avoided sitting in the dock in the middle of the Republican Party primaries. Judge Tanya Chutkan had scheduled a hearing for March 4, but Trump’s resources have forced her to postpone it indefinitely. Last week, the former president told the Supreme Court to let the case remain paralyzed, advancing some of his appeal’s arguments: “Without criminal immunity, we as presidents know it would cease to exist.”

The former president wants the Supreme Court to rule that the investigation of the case cannot continue, and therefore, with the trial, while he continues to appeal to the courts to recognize the alleged immunity. Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is charged with four possible crimes in the case that accuses Trump of manipulating the outcome of the election and preventing the transfer of power, has already been denied immunity. Trump appealed and a three-judge chamber of the Court of Appeal unanimously dismissed the appeal.

A former president can still further delay the process by going to the full court of appeals and, eventually, to the Supreme Court. Even if you lose all your resources, you will get time if you manage to put the case on hold. If Trump wants to win the election, he can order the charges to be dropped or pardon himself.

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Prosecutors railed against that strategy in writing this Wednesday: “His personal interest in postponing trial proceedings must be weighed against two powerful countervailing considerations: the government’s interest in fully presenting its case without undue delay; and compelling public interest in the immediate disposal of the case,” says

Trump’s lawyers said the months-long criminal trial against the former president and candidate in the middle of an election season would “radically disrupt President Trump’s ability to campaign against President Biden.” “The DC Circuit’s order (denying him immunity and ordering him to stand trial) thus threatens immediate and irreparable harm to President Trump’s First Amendment (free speech) interests and the millions of American voters who have the right to hear President Trump’s campaign. The message comes as they decide how to cast their vote in November,” they added in their writing.

Jack Smith counters that it’s the other way around: “The charges here relate to petitioner’s alleged attempts to disenfranchise millions of voters,” he says. “The nation has a compelling interest in seeing charges brought to trial,” he adds.

Prosecutors don’t want to waste time. He tells the court that if, in the alternative, it is inclined to review Trump’s immunity claim, it should take up the case now and expedite the process.

The debate about immunity refers to a case in Washington in which the former president is accused of trying to change the outcome of the 2020 election, which he lost to Joe Biden, to cling to power. However, the jurors’ theory could be extended to all four charges for the 91 alleged offenses against them.

Trump’s defense argued that he could not even be prosecuted for ordering special forces commandos to kill his political rivals. The judge handling the case and the Court of Appeals rejected the former president’s immunity in very strong terms.

“Whatever immunity a sitting president may enjoy, the United States has only one chief executive at a time, and that office does not carry life imprisonment,” Judge Chutkan said in the first instance.

“For purposes of this criminal case, former President Trump has become Citizen Trump, with all the defenses of any other criminal defendant. But any executive immunity that would have protected him while he was serving as president no longer protects him against this charge,” the three-judge Court of Appeals ruling said. “It would be a striking paradox if the President, who has the ultimate constitutional duty to ensure the faithful observance of the laws, were the only office capable of being challenged with impunity,” the justices elaborated in the rationale of the decision. “We cannot accept that the office of the President keeps its former occupants above the law forever,” he hinted in another of his sentences.

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