Trump’s Trial Clock Is Ticking & Ever More Illegal Immigration - Top 3 Takeaways – February 7th, 2024
- Not immune. The decision by the D.C. Federal appeals court not to grant Donald Trump presidential immunity on Tuesday was no surprise. That the Trump team is appealing the decision is no surprise either. It was on January 10th, in that day’s takeaways that I addressed the topic of Trump’s presidential immunity attempt when I said... Trump’s presidential immunity challenge is going nowhere. Yesterday the former and perhaps future President of the United States appeared in the D.C. Court of Appeals in an effort to press his challenge to pending criminal cases against him – asserting presidential immunity. The idea of Presidential Immunity as it exists today largely stems from the 1867 Supreme Court decision in Mississippi v. Johnson which stated: The Court had no jurisdiction . . . to enjoin the President in the performance of his official duties. Therefore, the legal precedent has been set that if a president is performing official duties, there’s legal immunity. If, however, it’s determined that he’s not conducting official business he could be held legally libel. I think it’s unlikely that the Supreme Court would make a ruling definitively stating that all of what Trump’s alleged by Jack Smith to have done would be considered official business without a trial having first played out establishing those facts. For that reason, I’d be surprised if the Supreme Court stepped in and essentially made most of Trump’s legal issues go away. After yesterday’s proceedings, with the three-judge panel taking an especially skeptical view in their line of questioning, a la this retort from George W. Bush appointed Judge Karen Henderson... I think it’s paradoxical to say that his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed allows him to violate criminal law. It’s quite clear that Trump’s effort to have his cases dismissed in the name of presidential immunity are going nowhere...which means, that at a minimum, it’s likely that the federal January 6th related case against him will move forward this year before the general election. So yeah – no surprises there. And as I mentioned, I don’t see a scenario where the Supreme Court will see Trump’s Presidential immunity challenge any differently. The key in that case and with Trump’s appeal is the timing.
- The clock is ticking. Jack Smith’s January 6th criminal case against Trump was just taken off the calendar for March 4th last Friday pending the ruling on the presidential immunity challenge. The D.C. Circuit court 3-judge panel heard the challenge on January 9th, and they ruled on February 6th. The questions are now these. Trump’s legal team, whose goal is to delay all of Trump’s outstanding legal matters until after the presidential election has been forced into a quick choice. A wrinkle in the D.C. Court’s decision was to thwart Trump’s efforts to use the immunity case to further delay. The law allows for the Trump legal team to have up to 30 days to decide what to do next. Ordinarily that could have included waiting 30 days and then asking for the case to be heard before the full D.C. Circuit Court. However, in the panel’s decision they said that if Trump’s team doesn’t appeal the case to the Supreme Court by the end of the day on Monday, they’ll free the D.C. judge overseeing the January 6th case to reschedule. That’s a clear indication that the full court is unlikely to be willing to hear the immunity case and it’s certain that the original decision against presidential immunity would stand. So, what will Trump’s team do now? The odds are they will make the appeal to the Supreme Court on Monday. From there the questions become... Will the Supreme Court decide to hear the appeal, or will they allow the lower court ruling to stand? If they choose to hear the appeal how quickly will they schedule it? And if that happens how long will they take to make a final ruling? The answers to those questions will determine how quickly the January 6th case can be rescheduled and whether it can be brought to completion prior to the presidential election. The Supreme Court’s current session ends at the end of June. If a ruling were to come at the end of the session, it would likely allow for the January 6th trial to be heard as early as July. If that were to happen it’d not only be taking place in time for it to reach a conclusion before Election Day, but the trial could even be underway during the political conventions. The Republican National Committee's convention takes place July 15th-18th in Milwaukee (perhaps late July is more likely for that reason). While I believe Trump will win his ballot access case before the Supreme Court, more on that tomorrow...the timing of the D.C. Circuit Court’s immunity decision yesterday increased the likelihood for Jack Smith to be bring the January 6th case to conclusion prior to the presidential election while keeping Trump in a D.C. court room as opposed to being on the campaign trail. Friday was a good day for the Trump legal team. The timing of the D.C. Circuit Court’s decision yesterday was not.
- But wait there’s more. The past week plus has been full of fresh government reporting which has helped to put a fine point on the extent of our illegal immigration crisis. For example, we know that approximately 97% of all asylum seekers at the southern border are nothing more than scam artists seeking to game our asylum system. We know that more illegal immigrants have been sent into Florida by the Biden administration than any other state. We know that the annual cost of operating Biden’s illegal immigration operation from our southern border to our communities is now tens of billions of dollars more than it cost to operate the entire state of Florida. We know that over a quarter of all federal crime is now committed by illegal immigrants and that illegal immigrants are greater than 9x more likely to be arrested for any federal offense than a legal citizen. And we know that the hard cost of it to you as you file your taxes this year is $1,156 per federal taxpayer in your home. But now we know even more. How fast the crisis is growing day after day. The latest data reveal from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services shows how many total asylum requests have been resolved per day across the country. The answer. 148. How many people have been coming across the southern border daily according to the latest reporting? 10,187. Or in other words, for each asylum-seeking illegal immigrant that’s fully processed by the Biden administration, there are 68 more who’ve come over. And yesterday the very president who created the border crisis through the use executive actions had the audacity to attempt blame Republicans for the problem...all while saying that the so-called border bill, of which only 17% has anything to do with the border and nothing in it calls for closing it, is the solution. It’s clear that the only solution in solving this crisis comes in 348 days – when Joe Biden (or Kamala Harris if Biden doesn’t make it that long) is replaced as President of the United States.