The Supreme Court will decide whether Trump is immune from federal prosecution. Here is the continuation

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court hears arguments this week with profound legal and political consequences: Former President Donald Trump is immune from prosecution in a federal case accusing him of conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

In addition to establishing a potentially historic ruling on the extent of presidential power, the court’s decision – when it is issued – will undoubtedly go a long way toward determining the date of Trump’s trial in one of the four criminal prosecutions facing the presumptive Republican presidential nominee faces. .

A quick ruling in favor of the Justice Department could potentially allow the case to go to trial this fall. But if the court takes until the end of June to resolve the issue, then the likelihood increases significantly that the November presidential election will take place without a jury ever being asked to decide whether Trump is criminally responsible for efforts to overturn a election which he lost in the weeks leading up to it. until the violent riot on January 6, 2021 at the United States Capitol.

A preview of what awaits us:

WHAT DOES THE COURT DECIDE?

A simple but legally unverified question: whether a former president is immune from federal prosecution for official acts.

Trump is the first ex-president to face criminal charges, making his appeal the first time in the nation’s history that the Supreme Court has had the opportunity to rule on the issue.

Although Justice Department policy prohibits indicting a sitting president, there is no bar to indicting a former president. Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team says the Founding Fathers never intended presidents to be above the law and that, in any event, the actions Trump is accused of — including participation to a scheme to enlist fake voters in battleground states won by President Joe Biden — are in no way part of a president’s official duties.

Trump’s lawyers, on the other hand, say former presidents have absolute immunity. They warn of a potential deluge of lawsuits against former presidents if they don’t have immunity and say the office can’t function if the commander in chief has to worry about criminal charges. And they cite an earlier Supreme Court ruling that presidents are exempt from civil liability for official acts, saying the same analysis should apply in a criminal context.

HOW DID THIS QUESTION REACH THE COURT?

The Supreme Court will actually be the third group of justices to address the issue in the past six months.

Last October, Trump’s lawyers asked U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, the trial judge in the case, to dismiss the indictment on grounds of presidential immunity.

The judge flatly rejected Trump’s claims of absolute immunity, saying in December that the office of the presidency does not confer “a lifetime pass to get out of jail free.”

In February, an appeals court ruled similarly, with a three-judge panel declaring that for purposes of this case, “former President Trump became a Trump citizen, with all the defenses of any other defendant criminal.”

Trump appealed to the high court, which, after several weeks, announced it would consider “whether and if so, the extent to which a former president enjoys presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for conduct alleged to involve acts officials during his mandate.

WHAT ARE THE COURT’S OPTIONS?

Judges have several avenues to decide the case. They will likely meet privately shortly after the proceedings to take a preliminary vote on the outcome. Chief Justice John Roberts would be an ideal candidate to take on the court’s view, assuming it has a majority.

They could simply reject Trump’s request for immunity out of hand, allowing the prosecution to move forward and sending the case back to Chutkan to set a trial date.

They could also overturn lower courts by ruling for the first time that former presidents cannot be prosecuted for conduct related to official acts while in office. Such a move would stop the lawsuits in their tracks.

There are other options as well, including ruling that former presidents retain some immunity for their official actions, but that whatever the limit is, Trump’s actions far exceed it.

Another possibility is that the court sends the case back to Chutkan with the task of deciding whether the actions Trump allegedly took to stay in power constitute official acts.

A court ruling in Trump’s favor is expected to have no bearing on the secret trial currently underway in New York, in part because that state-level case involves actions taken by Trump before he became president. And although Trump’s lawyers made the same immunity argument in a federal case in Florida accusing him of hoarding classified documents, that case accuses Trump of illegally retaining the documents and obstructing efforts to recover them after leaving office – rather than during his presidency.

HOW WILL THE DECISION BE HELD ON A TRIAL DATE?

How quickly the court acts after arguments could depend on the degree of agreement among the justices. Unanimous opinions almost always take less time to write than those that sharply divide the court.

If the justices rule against Trump and in favor of the government, the case would be sent back to Chutkan, who would then be empowered to restart trial preparations and set a trial date.

Any trial would still be several months away, in part because of Chutkan’s decision last December to freeze the case pending the outcome of Trump’s appeal. She also pledged to give prosecutors and defense attorneys time to prepare for trial if the case returns to her court.

This means that pending legal disputes, unresolved for months, will once again take center stage, not to mention new debates and court battles that have not yet surfaced but will also take up time on the calendar .

The trial is expected to last months, meaning it could run into elections if they don’t begin by August. Smith’s team said the government’s case should take no more than four to six weeks, but that doesn’t include the defense Trump might present. And jury selection alone could take weeks.

WHY does Trump want to delay the trial?

The timing of the trial — and whether Trump will be forced to sit in a Washington courtroom in the weeks before the election — has enormous political ramifications.

If Trump secures the GOP nomination and defeats Biden in November, he could potentially try to order a new attorney general to dismiss federal charges against him or he could even seek a pardon for himself – although that is of a legally unverified proposition.

Smith’s team did not mention the election in its filing, urging the Supreme Court to reject Trump’s efforts to further delay the case. But prosecutors noted that the case was of “unique national significance,” adding that “any delay in resolving these charges threatens to frustrate the public interest in a speedy and fair verdict.”

Trump, meanwhile, accused Smith of trying to rush the case to trial for political reasons. Trump’s lawyers told the Supreme Court in their filing that holding the trial “at the height of the election season would radically disrupt President Trump’s ability to campaign against President Biden — which appears to be the very purpose of the requests persistent dispatch of the special prosecutor.