Jack Smith was given one job.
Convict and jail Donald Trump by any means necessary.
But now the Supreme Court has set this big trap for Jack Smith.
Chief Justice John Roberts followed normal procedure and gave Smith one week to respond to Donald Trump’s motion asking for the Supreme Court to pause trial proceedings in the January 6 kangaroo court so Trump can pursue his appeals through the channels afforded every other defendant.
That means asking the entire D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to hear his appeal of a three-judge panel rejecting his claim of presidential immunity from prosecution on Jack Smith’s bogus January 6 charges.
“Allowing President Trump to pursue en banc review in the D.C. Circuit will provide an opportunity for similar thoughtful consideration in the lower court before this Court addresses the novel, complex, and momentous issues at stake in this appeal,” Trump’s motion read.
If Trump loses there he could then appeal to the Supreme Court.
Should the Supreme Court grant a stay, Trump would have 30 days to appeal en banc to the D.C. Court of Appeals and then 90 days to appeal to the Supreme Court.
If the Court follows a normal schedule it would likely push Trump’s case past the election.
Jack Smith has made it clear his entire goal is to interfere in the election with this prosecution.
Smith initially asked for a January 2024 trial date, four months after he indicted Trump.
Even the March 4 trial kickoff that Obama Judge Tanya Chutkan granted interfered with Trump’s Sixth Amendment right to prepare an adequate legal defense.
Trump’s team needs to sift through over 10 million documents and tens of thousands of hours of surveillance footage as well as perform their own investigation and interview witnesses.
There is no conceivable way Trump’s team has the proper time to prepare for trial under this truncated schedule.
That’s because Smith’s unstated goal is convicting Trump before the election as Smith thinks that is how he can deny Trump the White House.
Smith makes this clear in his indictment where he casts Trump’s mere existence as a politician as a threat to the foundation of democracy.
“This case presents a fundamental question at the heart of our democracy: whether a former President is absolutely immune from federal prosecution for crimes committed while in office or is constitutionally protected from federal prosecution when he has been impeached but [not] convicted before the criminal proceedings begin,” Smith’s politically motivated indictment of Trump read.
By keeping this case on the normal track – and Chief Justice Roberts did that by giving Smith one week to reply to Trump’s motion – Roberts is keeping the Court as politically neutral as possible by acting in the manner in which they would handle this case were the defendant’s name, not Donald Trump.