In a discussion in recent days on CNN with the news network’s Wolf Blitzer, legal analyst Norm Eisen blasted the U.S. Supreme Court’s handling of Donald Trump’s criminal case in which he stands accused by federal prosecutors of conspiring to undercut the 2020 presidential election outcome, meaning Joe Biden’s win. It’s one of the Trump cases from Special Counsel Jack Smith.
After initially leaving Trump’s claims of so-called presidential immunity to further proceedings at lower levels of the judiciary, the Supreme Court — which currently has a conservative majority — agreed, to much criticism, to hear further arguments, keeping the immunity arguments alive. Trump wants a judicial establishment of legal protections from even the possibility of criminal consequence for actions taken as part of his official responsibilities as president, which is where he is grouping what he was doing after the 2020 race.
“This question of whether the immunity that Donald Trump asserts — even to send Seal Team 6 to assassinate his political rivals — was first placed before the Supreme Court on Dec. 11, 2023. There’s no call to take six months to decide the absurdity of that question, and with every passing day, they’re more responsible for the problem you identify of getting this trial on the books,” Eisen told Blitzer.
Trump’s claims of immunity have been widely decried as outlining a presidency that goes far out of bounds of what’s appropriate for the U.S.’ democracy. Trump insists, in turn, that the kind of sweeping legal freedom he seeks is somehow essential to the functioning of the presidency.
“IF A PRESIDENT DOES NOT HAVE IMMUNITY, THE COURT WILL BE “OPENING THE FLOODGATES” TO PROSECUTING FORMER PRESIDENTS. AN OPPOSING HOSTILE PARTY WILL BE DOING IT FOR ANY REASON, ALL OF THE TIME!” he claimed in a post to Truth Social today (Monday). There will, actually, still be the familiar protective measures in the nation’s judicial system that consistently demand exacting compliance to the law when bringing prosecutions.
