The Supreme Court Could Let Trump Completely off the Hook, Simply by Running Out the Clock on the Jan. 6 Trial Beyond Election Day
The issue addressed in recent days is not some arcane matter as to the precise scope of some future President’s “immunity,” if any, from criminal prosecution for such acts as assassinations and more future coups.
The issue at hand is straightforward, but hugely consequential, involving as it does a case of unmatched historic importance. The question is how to assure that the Jan. 6 case — United States of America v. Donald J. Trump — can be tried before the November 5 election, which is exactly 6 months from today.
The pending appeal of the Jan. 6 indictment has been taken under advisement by the Supreme Court, which finally heard oral argument in the case nearly two weeks ago. And, as further evidence of its leisurely pace, the Supreme Court also had a hand in upwards of a five–month previous delay in the case — including a nearly two-month pause in scheduling the recent argument.
Here Is Why a Pre-Election Trial of the Jan. 6 Case Is Absolutely Essential:
First, the 2020 Presidential election resulted in a violent controversy over whether — as claimed by then still-incumbent President Trump — the election had been “rigged & stolen” in favor of the Democratic candidate, Joe Biden.
Putting aside whether there was any truth to what came to be known — at least in certain circles — as the “Big Lie,” there is no dispute that the resulting controversy ultimately led to the unprecedented violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6, organized and apparently condoned by President Trump.
Nonetheless, based on official state-by-state counts of the popular and Electoral College votes, examined in many hand and machine recounts and more than 60 Trump-initiated litigations, President Biden was found to be the clear winner of the election, and was ultimately inaugurated on schedule on January 20, 2021.
Since then, however — over the entire post-election period since 2020 and even before the 2020 election — former President Trump has decried nonstop what he persists in claiming was a “rigged and stolen” election. The pending Jan. 6 trial will finally give him the opportunity to put up actual proof of these claims, if he has any. Or to shut up.
Yet nonetheless — as many polls have indicated — the former President has managed to convince a notably significant percentage of his supporters that he actually won in 2020, and that President Biden’s election and administration have been illegitimate all along.
Thus, remarkably, in more than two years of polls since the Biden inauguration, the share of Republican voters who say they still believe Trump’s claim that the 2020 election was “rigged and stolen,” runs as high as 30-50%, if not more! And we are aware of no poll — to date — that has yielded an election-denial level, among Republicans, lower than 10 or 15%.
Applying these percentages to the total 2020 Republican Presidential popular vote (74 million-plus) yields something like 7.5 million million Trump election deniers (calculated at 10%) and 22 million who believe the election was “rigged and stolen” (at 30%) — if not more! This is the huge potential electoral advantage Donald Trump has built for himself based on his ready-made platform of the “Big Lie!” But can we all at least agree that a presidential candidate should be denied advantage based on a widely-circulated and constantly-repeated claim that has been alleged by the United States to be feloniously criminal and intentional — according to the untried Jan. 6 indictment — unless and until there is an acquittal on those charges?
Finally, there is one other key factor of exceptional importance here. That is, the two major-party candidates will be the same as in 2020, Donald Trump and Joe Biden. This means that any advantage either of the candidates may have secured — legally or illegally — in 2020 and since, will almost certainly carry over to the 2024 election. Again, surely, an illegal advantage as alleged but not yet tried in a pending federal indictment should not be bestowed upon a presidential candidate if that can possibly be avoided.
This is why a trial of U.S. v. Trump, BEFORE the election, is so critical. Because if the Supreme Court does not take every step necessary to move this case along to a pre-election verdict, Donald Trump would automatically be able to take full advantage of the baked-in benefit of his previous election lies and interference — alleged to be criminal in a still pending federal indictment!
All Donald Trump loyalists may not uniformly be won over, even by trial-tested facts. Nonetheless, it is clearly unjust to let Donald Trump’s previous, wrongfully-obtained advantage, as alleged, carry over undisturbed into the next election.
And this is even more so where the Supreme Court’s unnecessary delays of any trial stand in sharp contrast to the supremely powerful evidence of Donald Trump’s wrongdoing that has been diligently put together since 2021, first by the Jan. 6 Select Committee, after nearly a year-and-a-half of bipartisan investigations and hearings, all published in a very long and detailed Committee Report, and then by the Special Grand Jury in this case.
Or in other words: Justices of the United States Supreme Court, where are you? Will you deny the voting public the right to know who they are voting for? And, Honorable Justices, what should we think you are doing after all the delay that the Court has already initiated or at least condoned in this most critical case?