Former President Donald Trump, in response to special prosecutor Jack Smith’s filing, on Thursday again urged the Supreme Court to grant a stay of his trial over his alleged actions related to Jan. 6, 2021.
“The case involves almost 13 million pages of discovery, thousands of hours of video footage, and hundreds of potential witnesses,” the filing continues.
“With any other defendant, it would be virtually unthinkable for the case to go to trial so soon, and ‘wildly unfair’ to do so.”
The appeal aims to stay a lower court decision pending a review from the high court, arguing that it is a novel and important legal question of presidential immunity that needs to be settled by the Supreme Court.
President Trump’s attorneys argued against this in Thursday’s filing.
They argued that the trial should be stayed because the underlying question of presidential immunity could neutralize some of the charges in the case should the Supreme Court rule in his favor.
“Again it makes no sense to conduct a complex criminal trial while a case is pending in this Court that might invalidate half the charges in the indictment,” the filing reads.
“Further, forcing President Trump to go to trial before his claim of immunity is resolved on appeal contradicts this Court’s instruction that such claims are ‘effectively lost if a case is erroneously permitted to go to trial.’”
Two lower courts have rejected President Trump’s claim of presidential immunity in the case related to his actions on Jan. 6, 2021, to challenge the 2020 election results. He has argued that his efforts were part of the outer perimeter of his official duties as president.
A decision by the Supreme Court regarding President Trump’s request is imminent.
The justices might dismiss his emergency appeal to temporarily halt the D.C. Circuit’s ruling on immunity, or they could choose to delve deeper into the matter.
Should the request be rejected, the D.C. Circuit Court can move forward with arranging a trial on the election charges. Mr. Smith is eager for a resolution before the November general election.
Conversely, if the justices opt to review the case, it is likely to extend the trial timeline by several months, with the Supreme Court expected to schedule oral arguments later this year.
Mr. Smith has urged the Supreme Court to deny the former president’s request to halt legal proceedings while he appeals a ruling that he’s not immune from prosecution.
In a response brief filed on Feb. 14, prosecutors argued that President Trump has a low chance of winning a review, or certiorari, by the high court.
“Applicant cannot show, as he must to merit a stay, a fair prospect of success in this Court,” Mr. Smith’s office said in the filing.
Prosecutors argue the former president’s actions “strike at the heart of democracy” and that he tried to “thwart the peaceful transfer of power.”
Such a case is “the last place to recognize a novel form of absolute immunity,” they wrote.
In Thursday’s filing, President Trump argued that there is a “logical inconsistency” in Mr. Smith’s requests to the Supreme Court.
“The Special Counsel argued in December that it is ‘imperative’ that the Court should grant certiorari in this case. He now insists, with a straight face, that the Court should somehow not grant certiorari on the same issues. Logical consistency is absent from the Special Counsel’s response, and he provides no convincing reason to deny the requested stay. The stay requested by President Trump should be granted.”
President Trump’s filing highlights Mr. Smith’s move late last year when he asked the Supreme Court to intervene in the appeals court process, which was already on an expedited track.
Mr. Smith’s team argued that it was in the “compelling interest” of the public for the trial to proceed quickly. Prosecutors further argued that delaying this resolution might “frustrate the public interest in a speedy and fair verdict.”
President Trump’s attorneys rebutted this, contending that the speedy trial right sits with the defendant, not the public.
“The Special Counsel offers no explanation why that supposedly ‘compelling interest’ requires the immediate return of the mandate to the district court to set this matter for trial ‘likely … in three months or less from receiving the mandate,’” President Trump’s Thursday filing reads.
“That right to a speedy trial belongs to the defendant, not, as the Special Counsel erroneously suggests, the amorphous ‘public.’ Reaching a decision on immunity will require careful and deliberate review of myriad historical sources and could even require additional fact-finding below,” the filing adds.
The district court had scheduled the trial to begin on March 4, which was later delayed as legal proceedings unfolded.
