Former President Donald Trump made a last-ditch effort to convince the U.S. Supreme Court that it should delay his federal election subversion case while he appeals the question of whether he is immune from prosecution over any alleged crimes he committed while in office.
In a 16-page filing, the former president’s lawyers immediately leaped to accusing special counsel Jack Smith of partisanship for urging the high court to reject Trump’s request in an earlier Wednesday filing.
“As before, there is no mystery about the Special Counsel’s motivation,” his legal team wrote. “Commentators across the political spectrum point to the obvious—the Special Counsel seeks to bring President Trump to trial and to secure a conviction before the November election in which President Trump is the leading candidate against President Biden.”
They argued that Smith’s Wednesday filing “raises a compelling inference of a political motive”—to ruin Trump’s candidacy—and contradicts the Justice Department’s “longstanding” moratorium on prosecutors timing their cases to interfere with elections. (There is no evidence that Smith’s office or any of the other prosecutors involved in Trump’s three other criminal cases are politically motivated.)
“Pursuing that partisan motivation twists the Special Counsel into logical knots, as he now begs this Court not to decide issues that, two months ago, he begged the Court to decide,” they wrote.
The Supreme Court is expected to issue a decision on Trump’s emergency request in the coming days. Should it reject the overture, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan could restart proceedings and set a schedule. The trial had previously been set to start March 4.
Trump asked the Supreme Court to kick the can down the road on Monday, with Smith’s response being filed just two days later, six days ahead of the deadline set by Chief Justice Samuel Alito. The former president’s bid to delay his trial comes after a unanimous Feb. 6 decision by a three-judge appeals panel that he does not have presidential immunity.
“For the purpose of this criminal case, former President Trump has become citizen Trump, with all of the defenses of any other criminal defendant,” the panel wrote at the time.
