Consider This from NPR - Trump's Trials: The Supreme Court takes a pass

Episode Date: December 23, 2023

Today we're sharing an episode of NPR's podcast Trump's Trials, hosted Scott Detrow. In this episode, Scott is joined by NPR Justice Correspondent Carrie Johnson.This week's focus: The Supreme Court and presidential immunity. The court decided they would not take up Special Counsel Jack Smith's request to fast-track arguments on whether former President Donald Trump is immune from prosecution for alleged crimes committed while in office. Instead, the case will continue to make its way through the appeals process, further delaying the trial start date. Plus, Colorado's Supreme Court decision to remove Trump from the Republican primary ballot. Topics include: - The Supreme Court and presidential immunity - Colorado Supreme Court ruling on Trump - Predictions on how the U.S. Supreme Court may eventually respond - A look ahead to 2024 Follow the show on Apple Podcasts or Spotify for new episodes each Saturday.Sign up for sponsor-free episodes and support NPR's political journalism at plus.npr.org/trumpstrials.Email the show at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hey, it's Scott Detrow, and I'm here to share the latest episode in another podcast that I host called Trump's Trials, where each week we break down the big news from former President Trump's legal and civil cases and talk about what those cases mean for democracy. Thanks for listening, and we will be back in your feed tomorrow with our usual Sunday episode of Consider This. For now, the U.S. Supreme Court refuses to weigh in on presidential immunity. From NPR, this is Trump's Trials. I'm Scott Detrow. This is a persecution. Felony violations of our national security laws.

We need one more indictment. Criminal conspiracy. To close out this election. He actually just stormed out of the courtroom. Innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Once a week, we talk through the latest developments in all the legal trials of former President Donald Trump, all playing out as he runs for president again. And folks, a lot happened this week.

On Friday, the Supreme Court denied Special Counsel Jack Smith's request for the justices to fast-track a critical decision, whether or not Trump is immune for prosecution over alleged crimes committed while in office. Instead, that issue will work its way through the appeals courts and likely still end up at the Supreme Court. And that'll take some time. That March 4th start to the federal election interference case is likely long gone, and it's unclear when the trial or the other criminal trials will begin. The one date we do know next year is November 5th, when voters will decide who wins the presidential election. Earlier this week, we had another major legal update that will also likely end up before the Supreme Court. Colorado's top court disqualified Trump from the state's presidential ballot,

saying he engaged in insurrection and that bars him from holding office because of the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment. So we don't know when it will happen or what it will look like, but it is increasingly clear the Supreme Court will play a major role in all of these cases and the presidential election next year, all at a moment when the court's credibility is being questioned by a lot of Americans. There is a lot to talk about here, and we will talk about it with NPR's justice correspondent, Carrie Johnson, after a break. And I am joined now by NPR Justice Correspondent Carrie Johnson. Carrie, glad to have you back. Oh, happy to be here.

What is your reaction to this immunity decision or maybe non-decision by the court? You know, it's hard to say right now what to make of it. The court is less than transparent. I'll just put it that way. They didn't give a reason for denying Jack Smith's petition to hear this quickly. They didn't tell us what the vote was. They didn't tell us whether there were any denials by any of the justices.

And we also don't know whether Clarence Thomas has recused himself as some Democrats on Capitol Hill had asked him to do. So I'm going to wait till we have a little more information to give a real take. This feels, to me, this feels like what the Supreme Court is for, right? Unprecedented legal case involving an election, involving a president of the United States, involving key questions. How is the legal community responding to the court, at this-see approach here, in part because they think this matter will get up to the Supreme Court, and that may happen relatively quickly. That's because the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has already scheduled oral argument on this immunity issue for January

9th, and there's every reason to expect a quick decision from the D.C. Circuit. But lawyers are closely watching what happens from there. Will Donald Trump ask for the full appeals court to hear this? Will the Supreme Court be more willing to hear this immunity dispute quickly then? Of course, the trial date in Washington, D.C. really hangs in the balance here, as does a lot of Donald Trump's calendar for 2024. Right. And that trial was supposed to get started on March 4th. You just said that the appeals court is going to hear this on January 9th. But Trump's legal team has been pretty clear that there is a run out the clock strategy here. And that is because if he's the Republican nominee, if he's on the ballot, if he is elected president again, he would have the power to stop these federal cases into him.

What does this extra step mean? Or do we just not know at this time when it comes to how quickly that trial could start? We don't know. What we do know is for now, everything is on hold. And that makes a big difference because the jury selection in this case is going to take potentially a long time, maybe a month. And Judge Tanya Chutkin had asked a bunch of prospective jurors to show up at the courthouse in D.C. in early February. But now everything's on hold. So any kind of jury selection process is going to have to wait until we have more clarity from the higher courts. Yeah. I mean, we've talked a lot about Chief Justice John Roberts' larger mission to rehabilitate the reputation of the court and how

in recent years that's gotten harder and harder and harder. What does this particular decision at this moment say to you about that goal here? Because we are talking about a big collision of huge, weighty political issues that seem to be on their way to the court. Huge. A huge collision. Like a multi-car crash, if we can put it that way. And one clue that we have is that no one recorded a dissent today from this decision not to hear the case now in a quick manner. And so it may be that the justices are largely in alignment about what to do next procedurally. If some justice really had a huge concern about delay and whether this meant Donald Trump could run out the clock, then they might have written something, insisted it come out today. But all we have is that one sentence from the court.

And again, with that January hearing, is it possible that this could be just a matter of a few weeks delay at this point in time? Do we just not know? We don't know. It's possible. But the rules of the appellate court give Trump the option of seeking a review from the entire D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. And he has about 45 days to do that after the decision comes down. And then he has about 90 days to decide what to do next after that. If all of those deadlines are in play and in place now, like in a normal case, boy, that kicks us really,

really far into 2024. The open question is whether the appeals court and the Supreme Court are going to make him hurry up in some way. Yeah. And let's talk about another one of those cars in that multi-car pileup of possible big Supreme Court cases for a minute. That's the Colorado Supreme Court case. From earlier this week, the state Supreme Court ruling that Trump was ineligible to

be on the ballot, saying he engaged in insurrection. We've talked about the fact that this is another case that seems like it's headed to the Supreme Court. We don't know what the timeline would be on that yet, right? We haven't heard anything. No, what we're waiting for there is Donald Trump, who likes to delay. The ball is in his court about whether he said he wants to appeal, but he hasn't submitted a petition to the high court yet. And nothing can happen until he does that. And can you remind us, because, you know, we're back in that Trump news cycle where

something is an enormous story, then another enormous story happens and kind of wipes your brain clean of the first one. Welcome back. Can you remind us what some of the key questions that the federal courts would be thinking about would be with this Colorado case? Sure. So this all revolves around that the 14th Amendment and a particular section of the amendment that Congress passed after the Civil War. And it basically allows for disqualification of people who previously took an oath of office and then engaged in insurrection. So there are a lot of questions when it comes to Donald Trump. Did he in fact engage in an insurrection? He hasn't been convicted of that crime. Is this ruling by the lower court enough to disqualify him from the primary ballot in Colorado? Is the president considered an officer of the United States for purposes of

the 14th Amendment and in this particular section of the law, it's not clear. The president takes a slightly different oath than other people do. And finally, whether Donald Trump had enough due process in Colorado for that statistic, the really bold step of disqualifying him, everything there is on pause until January 4th. And so for now, it seems he will be on the primary ballot. But, you know, this is an issue across many states and the high court's going to have to weigh in here. I want to talk about Clarence Thomas. We're talking during a week when yet another investigative report came out raising a lot of questions about his income

during his years on the court. But the relevant thing here is that a lot of people are calling for Thomas to recuse himself from these cases due to the fact that his wife, Ginny Thomas, was at the Stop the Steal rally on January 6th, among other things. She was at the rally on January 6th, although she said she left relatively quickly. She also exchanged a number of text messages with White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, who was in the White House next to Donald Trump during the events of January 6th. And she's been on the record reaching out to officials in swing states about non-existent election fraud. So people like Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, have already written

to the court urging Thomas to follow the recusal statute and to recuse from this case because his impartiality could be questioned by any reasonable person. It's not clear if Thomas is going to take that step at this point, though. All right, Carrie, the year is wrapping up. It's been quite a year for you. You and I spent hours and hours of our life in studios this summer covering arraignment after arraignment for the president. You've covered all these other big legal issues too, but this is certainly a new level of unprecedented for you. Looking ahead to next year and what may await you, what are some of the biggest things you're watching? What are some of the biggest open-ended

questions that you have about all of this next year and how it plays out? You know, Scott, as we're sitting here a few days before Christmas, talking on this podcast called Trump's Trials, I must admit to you that about an hour ago, I had a question in my mind about whether there will be any trial of Donald Trump in 2024, and whether maybe we should rename this podcast. I don't know. I don't know. I got to tell you, like, there is a question now about that, right? And so the other thing that I do wonder about is, to some extent, in the Washington, D.C. election interference case revolvering around January 6th, and to a larger

extent, in the Mar-a-Lago case in Florida, that has to do with classified documents being stored in the Mar-a-Lago ballroom and bathroom and all those places we saw crazy photos of last summer. There are things we don't know yet, and there are things that prosecutors would introduce in a trial. There's evidence we haven't seen. There's witness accounts we haven't heard. And it seems to me that voters might want that information before they go to the ballot. Well, Carrie, if there are no trials next year, we can rebrand the podcast,

and you and I can just talk about Jason Isbell once a week, if that works for you. I'm down for that. I am. I am. That's NPR's justice correspondent, Carrie Johnson. Thank you so much. My pleasure. That's Trump's trials for this week. We're going to take next week off, so I hope you have a happy new year. And as the year wraps up, we are reflecting on launching this podcast in the last few months, and we want to say thank you for joining us in the early days of this show. Next year is going to be even bigger when it comes to former President Trump's trials, with the legal calendar getting even busier and Trump likely to be his party's nominee for president.

We will continue working to help you understand what is happening and what it means for democracy. And we hope we can count on your help to do that work. Thank you. And to anybody out there who is not a supporter yet, right now is the time to get behind the NPR network, especially ahead of such a big election year. Supporting public media now takes just a few minutes and it makes a real difference. So join NPR Plus at plus.npr.org or make a tax-deductible donation. The last minute for this year. You can do it at donate.npr.org. The show is produced by Tyler Bartlam and edited by Adam Rainey and Steve Drummond. Our technical director is Kwasi Lee. Our executive producers are Beth Donovan and Sammy Yenigan.

Eric Maripoti is NPR's vice president of news programming and probably thinks that Die Hard is not a Christmas movie. I'm Scott Detrow. Thanks for listening to Trump's Trials from NPR.