In extraordinary time, the Supreme Court has agreed to take up special counsel Jack Smith’s motion to consider claims by former President Donald Trump that he is immune from prosecution relating to statements made in the run-up to the January 6th, 2021 riots at the Capitol.
The high court made its decision almost immediately, agreeing to review the case on Monday and shortly after Smith filed his motion. In his request, Smith asked the court to recognize the historic nature of the situation and offer its opinion before the case could wind its way through an appeals court, effectively delaying a decision by months.
“The United States recognizes that this is an extraordinary request,” the filing states. “This is an extraordinary case.”
In its response, the court requested a counter motion from President Trump’s attorneys by Wednesday, December 20th at 4 p.m.
The former president and Republican frontrunner ripped the prosecutor, calling his attempt to speed up the trial a “Hail Mary” play.
“Crooked Joe Biden’s henchman, Deranged Jack Smith, is so obsessed with interfering in the 2024 Presidential Election, with the goal of preventing President Trump from retaking the Oval Office, as the President is poised to do, that Smith is willing to try for a Hail Mary by racing to the Supreme Court and attempting to bypass the Appellate Process,” Trump said via a spokesperson.
“There is absolutely no reason to rush this sham to trial except to injure President Trump and tens of millions of his supporters,” the statement added.
U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan, an Obama-appointed arbiter overseeing the case, previously ruled that President Trump is not immune from prosecution if he committed crimes while in office. She has also imposed a gag order on Trump, ordering him to refrain from speaking freely about the trial. However, she did not go as far as Smith requested, asking that Trump be imprisoned if he violated the order and claiming his repeated statements on social media are polluting the potential jury pool.
Attorneys for President Trump have requested that Smith turn over millions of pages of documents he plans to use against their client in court. A similar motion in Trump’s classified documents case already proved successful, and the release of so many documents could give the defense team additional months to conduct their review. If the case is not resolved by the November 2024 elections and President Trump wins a second term, there is the possibility that he could exercise presidential authority to dismiss the entire case.