XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.politics.elections, alt.politics.republicans XPost: talk.politics.guns

On 16 Dec 2023, "Trump - Inmate Number P01135809"
<patriot1@protonmail.com> posted some news:ulllke$2klg6$3@dont-email.me:

Trump is innocent and being persecuted by a bunch of woke trash
progressives who fear his power.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump’s election interference case in
Washington will be put on hold while the former president further
pursues his claims that he is immune from prosecution, a judge ruled
Wednesday.

The decision from U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan raises the
likelihood that Trump’s trial on charges of plotting to overturn the
2020 election, currently scheduled for March 4, will be postponed as the
appeal of a legally untested argument winds through the courts.

Shortly after Chutkan’s ruling, the federal appeals court in Washington
granted prosecutors’ request to expedite consideration of Trump’s
appeal. The appeals court set deadlines for briefs to be filed between
Dec. 23 and Jan. 2, but has not yet scheduled a date for arguments.

The issue is of paramount significance to both sides given that a court
ruling in Trump’s favor would presumably derail the case and because a protracted appeal could result in a significant postponement of the proceedings, including until potentially after next year’s election,
that would benefit the ex-president as he seeks to reclaim the White
House.

Chutkan’s three-page order is the latest volley in a simmering dispute
over the scope of presidential power that has the potential to be
decided by the U.S. Supreme Court for the first time in American
history.

A Trump campaign spokesperson called the judge’s decision to pause the
case “a big win for President Trump and our rule of law.”

“The constitution should not be suspended in a baseless prosecution
against the leading candidate for President,” Trump spokesperson Steven
Cheung said.

After Chutkan this month turned aside Trump’s claims that he was
shielded from prosecution for actions he took while fulfilling his
duties as president, his lawyers asked the Washington-based appeals
court to review the decision and urged the judge to freeze the case in
the meantime.

But special counsel Jack Smith, in a sign of both the gravity of the
issue and his determination to keep the case on schedule, sought to
leapfrog the appeals court by asking the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday to fast-track an opinion on the immunity question that would permit the prosecution to proceed. The court indicated that it would decide quickly whether to take the case up, ordering Trump’s lawyers to respond by Dec.
20. But it did not signal what it would ultimately do.

The Supreme Court dealt further uncertainty to the timing and overall
fate of the case Wednesday as it said it would review a charge of
obstruction of an official proceeding that has been brought against more
than 300 participants in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. The
charge is among the four brought by Smith against Trump, so a ruling in
favor of the accused rioters could upend not only those cases but also
affect the prosecution of the ex-president.

The argument that Trump is immune from prosecution has for months been
seen as perhaps the most weighty and legally consequential objection
made by the Trump lawyers ahead of trial. No former president has ever
been prosecuted before, a lack of historical precedent Trump’s team has
seized on in trying to get the indictment tossed out.

But Chutkan, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, flatly rejected Trump’s arguments, saying the office of the president “does not
confer a lifelong ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ pass.”

Her latest order Wednesday pauses any “further proceedings that would
move this case towards trial or impose additional burdens of litigation
on Defendant.” But she left open the possibility of preserving the
current trial date if the case returns to her court, saying that date
and other deadlines were being paused rather than canceled. She also
said her ruling had no bearing on the enforcement of a gag order placing restrictions on Trump’s speech outside of court.

Smith’s team had told Chutkan not to pause the case, saying the judge
could continue to resolve issues unrelated to the appeal while the
immunity claim is pending in appeals courts. Prosecutors said they would “continue to meet every pretrial deadline the court has set for it,” so
that the case could swiftly move to trial if the higher courts reject
Trump’s immunity argument.

While simultaneously asking the Supreme Court to hear the case, Smith’s
team had also asked the D.C. appeals court to expedite its consideration
of the Trump appeal. But Trump’s lawyers accused prosecutors of trying
to rush the case through before next year’s presidential election as
they told the judges to take their time.

Trump, in a social media post Wednesday evening, accused Smith of trying
to interfere with the election by rushing to the Supreme Court on the
question of immunity — something Trump said “is so basic to America that
it should be automatic.” He echoed that sentiment at a campaign event in
Iowa, saying prosecutors had waited until “they saw I was hot” to bring
a case.

A Supreme Court case usually lasts several months, from the time the
justices agree to hear it until a final decision. Smith is asking the
court to move with unusual, but not unprecedented, speed.

Nearly 50 years ago, the justices acted within two months of being asked
to force President Richard Nixon to turn over Oval Office recordings in
the Watergate scandal. The tapes were then used later in 1974 in the
corruption prosecutions of Nixon’s former aides.

It took the high court just a few days to effectively decide the 2000 presidential election for Republican George W. Bush over Democrat Al
Gore.

If the justices decline to step in now, Trump’s appeal would continue at
the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Smith said even a rapid appellate decision might not get to the Supreme Court in time for review
and final word before the court’s traditional summer break.

Trump faces four criminal prosecutions. He is charged in Florida with
illegally retaining classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate and
faces a state prosecution in Georgia that accuses him of trying to
subvert that state’s 2020 presidential election and a New York case that accuses him of falsifying business records in connection with a hush
money payment to a porn actress.

https://apnews.com/article/trump-justice-department-january-6-appeal-2072 6ba42ac87cd2f3a3ffc6a2145490

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