Special Counsel Jack Smith Wednesday evening asked the US Supreme Court to allow the January 6 trial against Trump to proceed without delay.
The US Supreme Court on Tuesday responded to President Trump’s emergency application requesting the high court pause the immunity ruling in Jack Smith’s January 6 case in DC.
Chief Justice Roberts on Tuesday responded to Trump’s emergency request and told Special Counsel Jack Smith he has a week to respond.
The Supreme Court gave Jack Smith until Tuesday, February 20 to file a response to Trump’s request to pause the appellate court’s ruling on immunity.
Last week a federal appeals court stacked with Biden judges denied Trump immunity in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s January 6 DC case.
The three-judge panel for the DC Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Trump immunity claims: Florence Pan (Biden appointee), Michelle Childs (Biden appointee), and Karen Henderson (George W. Bush appointee).
“We have balanced former President Trump’s asserted interests in executive immunity against the vital public interests that favor allowing this prosecution to proceed,” the three-judge panel wrote.
“We conclude that ‘concerns of public policy, especially as illuminated by our history and the structure of our government’ compel the rejection of his claim of immunity in this case,” they wrote.
Trump’s lawyers argued that Trump is immune from federal prosecution for alleged ‘crimes’ committed while he served as US President.
Jack Smith filed a motion asking the Supreme Court to move the trial forward without further delay.
The March 4 trial date for Jack Smith’s DC case has been postponed.
Earlier this month Judge Tanya Chutkan, the Obama appointee who is overseeing Jack Smith’s January 6 case against Trump in DC formally postponed the trial.
Jack Smith is admitting he wants Trump convicted before the 2024 election.
CNN reported:
Special counsel Jack Smith pressed the Supreme Court on Wednesday to let stand a lower court ruling that denied former President Donald Trump immunity from prosecution, urging the justices to allow the trial in his election subversion case to begin quickly.
“The charged crimes strike at the heart of our democracy,” Smith told the Supreme Court.
“A president’s alleged criminal scheme to overturn an election and thwart the peaceful transfer of power to his successor should be the last place to recognize a novel form of absolute immunity from federal criminal law,” the special counsel added.
Smith’s filing was a response to an emergency request to the Supreme Court that Trump made Monday, seeking to pause proceedings so he could appeal a DC Circuit decision that denied him the ability to claim presidential immunity. Trump has argued that the “presidency as we know it will cease to exist” if the lower court’s ruling was allowed to stand. Smith’s response came days before it was due, underscoring the special counsel’s desire to rapidly move to trial.
Smith argued Trump cannot meet the standard required to block the lower court’s ruling.
“Delay in the resolution of these charges threatens to frustrate the public interest in a speedy and fair verdict,” Smith wrote.
