Grass Is Not Growing

#SCOTUS has *granted* Jack Smith’s motion to expedite the petition for certiorari before judgment—and has ordered former President Trump to respond to the petition by next Wednesday at 4 ET. pic.twitter.com/3ZZiV8ATaS

— Steve Vladeck (@steve_vladeck) December 11, 2023

No, I don’t think the Supreme Court wants to pull Trump’s bacon out of the fire. Even Alito (I will grant Thomas is enough of an ideologue to have departed reality altogether after too many years of corruption on the bench) understands that if Trump wins election and moves the DOJ to dismiss the cases against him (which haven’t gone to trial by then partly due to Court action or inaction) , it would be a constitutional crisis that would upset even the Court’s apple cart. Besides, they’ve only agreed to consider taking the case:

Just to be clear, this is *not* the Court agreeing to take up the case now. It is just the Court agreeing to move *very* quickly in deciding *whether* to take up the case at this juncture (i.e., before the court of appeals).

— Steve Vladeck (@steve_vladeck) December 11, 2023

Maybe I should put that more plainly. Alito can get four more votes for many things, but not for chaos or a blatant constitutional crisis. Declaring a president a king, would be such a crisis.

Smith pitched this as an emergency and an issue of vital public importance: is a former president a felon, or not? I don’t see a majority declaring that an unanswerable question as a matter of Constitutional law. Because that would make the POTUS an absolute sovereign. And then how much power does the Court, and the entire judiciary, lose?

Some choices threaten the status quo that benefits us all.

You’ll note this only works if the Court moves swiftly on the matter. They’ve already told Trump to respond by Wednesday, and then they will consider whether or not to agree with the Special Counsel’s petition and consider the issue.the parties to brief the matter in 10 days. That doesn’t tip how they’ll rule, but it does indicate they will give this their full attention

This is already not what Trump wanted.

"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," reads the statement, flagged by the Guardian and attributed to a Trump spokesperson. 

"Smith is willing to try for a Hail Mary by racing to the Supreme Court and attempting to bypass the appellate process." 

The spokesperson's angry response arrived the same day Smith, the prosecutor behind the federal election interference case, asked the Supreme Court to make a swift ruling on whether the Trump has "presidential immunity" from federal prosecution. 

"Deranged [Smith] may need to be reminded that the Supreme Court has not been kind to him, including by handing down a rare unanimous rebuke when the Court overturned him 8-0 in the McDonnell case," the spokesperson continued. "As President Trump has said over and over again, this prosecution is completely politically motivated. There is absolutely no reason to rush this sham to trial except to injure President Trump and tens of millions of his supporters.

So, there’s that.