Welcome back, Deadline: Legal Newsletter readers, and Happy New Year. It’s already a busy one on the Trump legal front, with a number of his cases on the Supreme Court’s docket or headed that way.
The justices finally agreed to take up Donald Trump’s eligibility for office on Friday, setting oral arguments for Feb. 8. With challenges to the former president’s qualification under the 14th Amendment pending across the country, the Supreme Court can settle the issue nationwide in this Colorado case. As I told Alicia Menendez on “Deadline: White House” this week, we need a nationwide resolution for this issue ahead of the November election. Now it looks like we’ll get one.
In Trump’s criminal immunity appeal, the D.C. Circuit is set to hear argument Tuesday. How quickly the court rules — likely against Trump — will set the stage for the timing of an eventual Supreme Court appeal by whichever side loses. Ahead of the hearing, special counsel Jack Smith warned that granting Trump immunity from prosecution would mean presidents could sell nuclear secrets to foreign adversaries and order the murder of their critics, among other nightmare scenarios.
And while the D.C. prosecution is paused at the trial level pending the immunity appeal, Trump complained in a motion this week to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan that Smith and his team are still working on the case. Instead of ignoring Smith’s legal filings and discovery productions — as the defendant is fully within his rights to do while the case is on hold — the former president’s legal team told Chutkan that she should hold Smith and his prosecutors in contempt. But as I explained in this post and as MSNBC legal analyst Andrew Weissmann told Lawrence O’Donnell on “The Last Word,” it’s not a winning argument from the Trump team.
Another Trump hearing is coming Thursday in his New York civil fraud case, where Judge Arthur Engoron is set to preside over closing arguments. A Friday filing…
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