Supreme Court Takes on Trump Immunity Challenge

The Supreme Court handed Donald Trump a huge win this week.

The court agreed to take on Donald Trump’s claim of presidential immunity.

Even if he loses the case, the fact the court is even taking up the case and has scheduled arguments for April is a monster win.

Push It Back, Shove It Back

Donald Trump had hoped to exhaust all legal options before the court took up this case, but Special Counsel Jack Smith has urged the court to take up this matter now.

So, the court more or less split the difference. It took the case, but the hearing for arguments on the matter is not scheduled until April 22, which will surely move Trump’s legal calendar back significantly on relevant cases.

If the court follows normal procedures, the decision is not likely to come down until the summer, which gives Trump exactly what he needs… more time.

I do have to say, however, that I think Trump’s attorneys are taking a flawed approach to this hearing.

They are arguing for blanket immunity for a president, but the court has already settled that issue.

His attorneys argued, “Without Presidential Immunity, a President will not be able to properly function, or make decisions, in the best interest of the United States of America.

“Presidents will always be concerned, and even paralyzed, by the prospect of wrongful prosecution and retaliation after they leave office. This could actually lead to the extortion and blackmail of a President.”

Presidential immunity only pertains to acts committed in the role of president, not to actions that are outside that purview.

Trump has previously referenced an errant air strike that struck a wedding party during the Obama administration, stating that it would open up Obama to prosecution, but that is not true.

The order of the strike was clearly something that was done in the role of commander-in-chief, not a personal act.

To that point, Trump’s attorneys need to prove that Trump’s words and actions regarding the 2020 election were in the role of the president to ensure election integrity, not blanket immunity.

If a president had blanket immunity, he could literally murder someone on the street for no reason but not be prosecuted.

There is an argument to be made, but the challenge will be the way Trump went about challenging the election results and the January 6 “Stop the Steal” rally, which was more like a campaign event than something that a president would oversee.

My gut here is that Trump is going to lose this case, but he will be able to delay it, and that is what this is really about for him.

If he can somehow manage to get these cases pushed back beyond the general election, it will not impact the election, and Trump is fully aware that his polling numbers go down significantly with a felony conviction in place.