Did the Supreme Court just slam the door on a federal trial for Donald Trump before the election? You’ll be hearing a lot of opinions on this from the experts you know and trust, with clouds of doom and gloom gathering over MSNBC.
The New York Times reports on what many consider the worst case timeline for a Supreme Court decision:
Judge Chutkan froze the election case on Dec. 13. That means, if she sticks to her decision, she owes Mr. Trump an additional 82 days of preparation time — equivalent to the period between Dec. 13 and the originally scheduled trial date of March 4. If the Supreme Court renders a ruling on the immunity decision in June and preparations for the trial start up again immediately, the extra 82 days could push a trial date into September.
But if the Supreme Court treats this case with the same degree of consequence as Bush V. Gore, which took one day to decide, the clock could start a lot earlier than late June.
As the Brennan Center’s Michael Waldman writes on the platform formerly known as twitter, the Supreme Court has been captured by a faction of a faction. I fear this rump group of Trump enablers has succeeded in buying Trump some time, but I don’t believe there are five votes for immunity—do you?
Elsewhere on this platform, law professor Steve Vladeck writes,
My best read of tonight's order is that the Court was stuck between two camps, and this was the compromise way out. One camp of some number of justices wanted to keep the prosecution on hold indefinitely; one camp wanted to stay out of the case altogether (or summarily affirm). And neither of those camps apparently had enough votes, which is how we ended up here. So what this says to me is that the "middle" of the Court (the Chief Justice, Justice Kavanaugh, and Justice Barrett) wants to resolve this issue, but *also* wants to resolve it before the election, even *if* the result is to make it practically impossible for the trial to wrap up by November. That's an unsatisfying result, to be sure. But I still think (1) a trial by the end of the summer is possible; and (2) we should keep in mind that at least there weren't enough votes for the even worse scenario.
I can understand why the Supreme Court thought it should be the author of this chapter in history, and not the lower court.
Also, the legal minds on TV say that considering Trump plans on making the same absurd claim to immunity he’s making in DC in his trials in Georgia and Florida, SCOTUS needs to lay down the law.
OK, so SCOTUS could have moved faster, but isn’t. Maybe because Justices Thomas and Alito have convinced one or more of Trump’s bunch to slow things down, even if they won’t ultimately vote for his cockamamie views on immunity.
I previously believed the the trial would happen before the Republican convention, giving what’s left of the Republican Party a chance to nominate someone who wasn’t a convicted felon who following months of damaging evidence revealed at trial has taken such a hit in the polls that not only is he losing in swing states, but dragging Senate candidates down with him.
They should be so lucky.
Now it looks like the trial might be still going on in the fall. Joe Biden will appear at campaign stops, while Donald Trump appears in court. How’s that for a contrast?
As
writes:Would it be easier to beat Trump if he were convicted of a crime before the election? Absolutely!
Does Joe Biden need Donald Trump to be convicted to win? Absolutely not!
Whether or not by Election Day Donald Trump is a convicted felon awaiting appeal, still on trial, or awaiting for the start of the trial he managed to delay—but not escape—he will still be the most damaged presidential candidate in history.
For the next nine months, Joe Biden will have a campaign that’s better funded, better organized and better run than Donald Trump, who will still have his base—but that’s about it. He’s not picking up votes in the handful of states that matter in the Electoral College.
According to Larry Sabato’ Crystal Ball,
We have previously noted that only seven states were decided by less than three points in 2020: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. This represents the real battlefield: Particularly if the race is a Biden vs. Trump redux, we would be surprised if any other state flipped from 2020 outside of this group.
I’ll be very surprised if the Democrats win North Carolina, pleasantly surprised if they win Georgia again, but I’m hopeful for Nevada and Arizona.
And—and I can’t repeat this enough—I don’t think there are many voters in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin who didn’t vote for Trump last time but are now saying, “you know, that Donald Trump is making more and more sense!”
Trump may hold on to his base but he’s turning off suburban voters, women and the dwindling number of true “undecideds” faster than you can say “abortion ban” or “IVF ruling.” The three states that Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump, but Joe Biden won back, are not going for Trump.
I won’t quote
again, but Dan Pfeiffer has pointed out on numerous occasions how unrepresentative most national polls are, particularly at this point in the cycle.Oh hell, I can’t help myself.
“When was the last time you answered a call from an unknown number? Almost all polling calls are marked “potential spam” by the iPhone. A few years ago, someone involved in the Obama data team told me that the response rate for our polls dropped 50 percent from 2008 to 2012 and then 50 percent again in 2016. It’s safe to say that Democrats aren’t the ones answering calls from unknown numbers and then spending a considerable amount of time on the phone with strangers.”
Were you worried about polls in Michigan after the 100,000 votes “Uncommitted” got against Joe Biden in the primary? How many of those protesting against the president’s failure to stop Israeli war crimes against Palestinians will vote for the guy who wants a Muslim ban?
I’m not giving up on the spectacle, and ensuing boost to democracy, of a federal trial for Donald Trump before the election. But we’ll still have nine months of Trump babbling and melting down on the campaign trial, while Joe Biden—who is a very old man, but so what? it’s what we’ve got!—acts like a President.
I just wish he’d worn that boot…