For weeks now, former President Donald Trump and U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan have been locked in a parade of Trump motions and appeals tied to his federal election interference indictment. On Dec. 1, Chutkan denied Trump’s motions to dismiss his federal indictment on presidential immunity and constitutional grounds. Trump promptly appealed that denial. It’s all part of the same strategy to delay his criminal trial in Washington, D.C., until after November 2024.
To defeat the legal scheme designed to postpone Trump’s March 4 criminal trial, special counsel Jack Smith is getting creative. On Monday, he asked the Supreme Court to step in and decide Trump’s presidential immunity appeal directly, avoiding a potentially extensive back-and-forth in the lower courts. The high court has already replied to Smith, saying it would consider on an expedited basis whether to hear the case.
To defeat Trump’s legal scheme designed to postpone his March 4 criminal trial, special counsel Jack Smith is getting creative.
This an uncommon strategy, invoked by the government in United States v. Nixon almost 50 years ago to expedite the appellate timeline. But by following the blueprint used in 1974 by Special Prosecutor Leon Jaworski to compel President Richard Nixon to release key White House tapes, Smith could stop Trump from pushing his Washington trial beyond Election Day.
On May 20, 1974, a district judge ordered Nixon to comply with the special prosecutor’s subpoena for key White House tape recordings in connection with a criminal trial of six of Nixon’s closest aides. That criminal trial was scheduled to begin in less than four months, on Sept. 9.
Four days later, Nixon’s lawyers appealed to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for Washington, D.C. To prevent being bogged down in that court, federal prosecutors petitioned the Supreme Court to bypass the Court of Appeals and rule on Nixon’s objections directly. Unlike what Trump would be likely do today,
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