Democratic lawmakers are sounding the alarm over what they see as conservative judges tipping the scales in former President Trump’s favor in two federal cases.
Both cases accuse the former president of trying to subvert the 2020 elections and obstructing justice related to the handling of confidential documents.
Some Democratic senators suggest that conservative Supreme Court justices are playing politics by delaying Special Counsel Jack Smith’s case related to the events of January 6, 2021, so that there is no chance of reaching a verdict before Election Day.
And they are perplexed that Judge Aileen Cannon let Smith’s case over Trump’s handling of confidential documents get bogged down in complex and arcane legal arguments about the Presidential Records Act, which prosecutors say has nothing to do with it. do with the case.
The bottom line is that Democrats doubt that two of the strongest criminal cases against Trump, including the most serious charge that he tried to overturn the results of the last presidential election, will reach a verdict before November.
Democratic senators were exasperated by last week’s oral arguments before the Supreme Court, during which several justices from the conservative majority appeared open to arguments from Trump’s legal team that the former president should be granted broad immunity for anything related to an official act, such as communicating to his supporters on January 6, before they marched on the Capitol.
“It would truly be outrageous if the court ruled that presidents are immune for all of their conduct in office,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.).
“We have a system where, as many have said, the idea was to create a democracy and not have an all-powerful king who could violate the country’s laws with impunity, and God help us if we open the door to presidents who can commit crimes with impunity,” he added.
Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) said she was concerned that the justices became so caught up in hypothetical scenarios about presidential immunity that they paid relatively little attention to the charges Trump actually faces.
“That felt like a step backwards,” she said. “To me, the question of whether or not a president is immune from prosecution should be clear.”
“Of course, it is deeply concerning that it is taking them so long to get to this. It took so long to hear the arguments and now we don’t know how long it will take for them to give their opinion,” she said.
Smith said if the Supreme Court sent arguments about Trump’s claims back to the lower courts for discussion, potentially delaying criminal proceedings for months more, it would be a “travesty.”
Above the law
While conservative members of the high court last week appeared to consider the idea that the Constitution gave the president broad immunity from prosecution even after leaving office, liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson warned that granting Trump immunity for all official acts it ran the risk of turning the Oval Office into the “headquarters of criminal activity in this country.”
Democrats warned that the Supreme Court could put Trump “above the law.”
“We have to wait and see how this ends, but I am concerned about the notion that the president is above the law. I don’t believe that,” said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.).
Durbin, whose panel confirmed all members of the high court, said he found the arguments surreal at a time when the justices were exploring hypothetical questions about what would happen if the president ordered the assassination of a political rival.
“I think some of the examples that have been used in court of a president ordering the military to kill an individual because he considered him a threat to his administration are an indication that we are taking this to the extreme,” he said. “I will watch closely and see what this court decides, but to say that the president is above the law is, I think, inconsistent with our Constitution.”
Some legal experts also expressed surprise that some of the judges appeared open to new theories from Trump’s legal team.
“It was surprising to hear, at least from some of the justices, the possibility that a president could somehow commit criminal misconduct for which he could never be held accountable in court,” said Michael Gerhardt, a constitutional scholar at the University of North Carolina. he told ABC News this week.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.), the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, predicted the Supreme Court will make a decision in June, sending Special Counsel Smith’s case, listed on Jan. 6, back to a lower court to resolve. some a kind of definition on how far presidential immunity extends, which would delay the prosecution for months.
“I think they will go back to the lower courts to find out exactly which actions fall under presidential immunity and which are considered personal. I think this is how it will end: there will be immunity for some of the actions,” he said in an interview with CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Angry Democrats
The prospect of Graham’s prediction coming true and delaying verdicts in Trump’s trials has left Democrats furious.
“I was hoping they would just leave the D.C. Circuit Court decision alone and be done with it,” said Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), a member of the Judiciary Committee.
The D.C. Circuit forcefully rejected Trump’s immunity claims in a unanimous opinion earlier this year that was so strongly worded that experts wondered whether the Supreme Court would even take up the case.
“We know that the Trump team [strategy] for any of these accusations is to delay everything. They seem to be succeeding in that regard,” noted Hirono, adding that she is “not happy” with the fact that the cases against Trump appear to be completely stalled ahead of the election.
A significant percentage of Republican voters said in exit polls during this year’s presidential primaries that they would consider Trump unfit for office if he were convicted of a crime.
But now it appears that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s relatively mysterious case against Trump for falsifying business records will be the only one likely to reach a verdict before Election Day.
Legal experts and lawmakers from both parties generally consider Bragg’s case to be the weakest of the four criminal cases against Trump.
Democrats say the Supreme Court’s openness to carefully weighing Trump’s immunity claims, which the D.C. Circuit has treated as an open-and-shut question, will only fuel calls to expand or reform the high court.
“It makes me want to look at the Supreme Court. I have already signed a bill that would change the composition of the Federal Supreme Court and that is where I am. I think we need judicial reform,” Hirono said.
Senators Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Smith and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) introduced the Judiciary Act of 2023, which would expand the Supreme Court by four seats.
Hirono also questioned the conduct of Cannon, a Trump-appointed judge who took seriously Trump’s argument before the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida that confidential documents found at Trump’s inauguration were actually his personal property. under the Presidential Records Act.
Federal prosecutors argued in a 24-page document that the judge’s order for the parties to submit proposed jury instructions, taking seriously the defense of the Presidential Records Act, was based on a “fundamentally flawed legal premise.”
“I think many of Trump’s appointments and nominees — including, by the way, the Supreme Court — have an ideological agenda, and that’s not what we expect from our judges,” Hirono said.
“What I expect from judges is fair and impartial decision-making based on facts and precedents. That is not what is happening with the Supreme Court and a judge like Aileen Cannon,” she said.
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
