During a new interview on MSNBC, law professor Leah Litman suggested that conservative members on the U.S. Supreme Court were potentially in what’s basically Donald Trump’s pocket.
She was speaking specifically about the prospect of an intentional delay behind the court’s handling of Trump’s recent appeals claiming that he holds wide-ranging legal protections by mere virtue of once serving as president that should shut down a key criminal case against him. Litman pointed particularly to the court’s scheduling, which seemingly created — especially now that it seems possible they don’t even fully reject Trump’s immunity claims — the prospect of extensive delays pushing trial beyond even the 2024 presidential election.
“I don’t think we can rule out that possibility,” Litman said, discussing the possibility that certain elements on the court were intentionally assisting Trump. “I think if you compare the Court’s treatment of the Trump immunity case to previous cases, it looks like they are doing things differently here, and in ways that advantage Donald Trump. In the Trump disqualification case for example, they decided to hear that case very quickly and schedule oral argument immediately and ensure a decision before the primary election. Here, by contrast, they decided to take the case and then schedule it for argument almost two months after they decided to hear it.”
The case at issue accuses Trump of a variety of criminal conspiracies inherent to his conduct after the last presidential election, when he infamously targeted the outcome — meaning Biden’s victory. Trump is trying to characterize what he was doing as just part of his official responsibilities as president on the idea that rooting out electoral fraud would serve the interests of the people of the United States. The problem is that systematic fraud of the sort that Trump has claimed has long been clearly illusory.
