Jack Smith just made a gutsy, momentous decision in his prosecution of Trump | Margaret Sullivan
www.theguardian.com
Smith has asked the supreme court to rule – urgently – on whether Trump has legal immunity, as the ex-president claims

Timing isn’t everything. But it certainly matters, and seldom more so than in special counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution of Donald Trump.

The former US president intends to use timing – delay, delay, delay – to avoid punishment for trying to overturn the 2020 election, which he lost to Joe Biden, and for fomenting a violent coup.

Nope, said Smith this week. A tough guy who has prosecuted war crimes in the Hague, Smith clearly recognizes that putting off the case until after next fall’s presidential election could let Trump off the hook.

So the prosecutor made a bold legal maneuver. Smith moved to bypass the court of appeals, whose involvement could slow things down considerably, and to go directly to the US supreme court for a decision on a foundational issue.

  • ChrisLichtEnglish
    32·
    11 months ago

    The intellectual and professional desert of center-lib media is fascinating: The same rotating cast of five MSNBC guests who are on every day, all day, are now primary fodder for print stories trying to get in on wishcasting monetization, like this Guardian piece. Newsweek and HuffPost literally report MSNBC show opinions now, like they’re news.

    There are hundreds of qualified law professors and law firm partners with either deep legal theory or direct practice experience relevant to the Trump cases, but good luck hearing from them. Instead, we get Vance, Litman, Katyal, McQuade, and Weissman, all day every day, and now also in print.

    This desert isn’t good for us. The MSNBC wishcasting monetization model left Americans poorly prepared for the Mueller outcome. The guy was canonized as a genius Marine Superman who would undoubtedly smite Trump; other professional voices weren’t invited on.