It’s clear that the Court’s decision to slow roll Trump’s appeal while fast rolling other topics it’s eager to make law on speaks volumes. The arguments themselves are specious by any standard of existing legal understanding. It has been DOJ policy and conventional understanding for half a century that a sitting president cannot face criminal charges. The president isn’t above the law but, for a mix of practical and separation-of-powers reasons, charges have to wait until after the president leaves office. Trump is arguing that a president can’t ever be charged with a crime. Call it neo-Nixonian reasoning: If the president does it, it can’t be a crime. He’s further arguing, among other things, that if you get acquitted at your impeachment trial you have legal immunity for those acts going forward.
Justice delayed is justice denied. The American republic is waiting for justice. There’s no rationale for this decision other than assisting Trump’s strategy of delay, which he hopes, and which may, allow him to end the whole prosecution if he wins the 2024 election.
I very much doubt a majority on the Court has the stomach to actually entertain these arguments. But giving Trump an assist on the calendar? Sure. Absolutely.
