US Supreme Court Hands Win to Trump

Just earlier today, in a legal win for President Trump, the U.S. Supreme Court declined Jack Smith's request to fast-track the January 6th case. Specifically, in a very simple unsigned order that was published over on the official Supreme Court website, the justices, they wrote the following. Quote, petition for a writ of certiorari before judgment denied. This means that almost certainly, the timetable that Jack Smith was shooting for, meaning his plan to get the trial started one day before Super Tuesday, has now been essentially thrown out the window. And the reason that this matters is because the January 6th trial that Jack Smith is pushing for over in Washington, D.C. is truly not about the facts of the case. With a Washington, D.C. jury pool, well, it's pretty much a given that almost no matter what, President Trump will be found guilty. And so instead, this is a race against time, and Jack Smith knows that. That's why Jack Smith and his team of federal prosecutors have been so adamant about starting the trial on March 4th, one day before the Super Tuesday primary elections. Doing it this way, it will not only put a damper on President Trump's ability to campaign in the primaries, but also it'll hinder his ability to campaign for the general election. And then furthermore, if this trial gets delayed for too long, and if Trump gets reelected as president, well, that would mean that the entire thing has to be delayed further by another four years because President Trump would not be able to stand trial as a sitting president of the United States. These are the three reasons for why this decision by the U.S. Supreme Court matters so much. By declining to fast track this case, as Jack Smith had requested, they're making it such that this case almost certainly will not start before the primary elections. And given how relatively slow the typical appeals process is, well, this case, it probably won't even start until after the general election, which again, if Trump wins that election, then the case won't even start until the year 2028. There are several factors that are still at play, which could invalidate the entire January 6th Washington, D.C. case altogether. The first factor, as we discussed in yesterday's episode, is the fact that in a totally separate unrelated case, the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to review several lawsuits that were brought forth by other January 6th prisoners. That lawsuit, it will have the U.S. Supreme Court decide whether or not the obstruction of Congress charges are real and valid. And if they decide that they're not, then about half of the indictments against President Trump will dissolve because he was charged under the same statute. If you'd actually like to go deeper into the details of the relevant law that federal prosecutors are relying on for this obstruction charge and why perhaps it doesn't make any sense, you can check out yesterday's episode. I'll throw a link to that episode down into the description box below for your convenience. However, the second factor that might invalidate the entirety of this January 6th case against Trump is the fact that even though the U.S. Supreme Court has declined to fast track the appeals process, well, that just means that the appeals process is still ongoing just at a normal pace. And so what's happening right now is that Trump's legal team is trying to get this entire January 6th case dismissed because they're claiming that Trump's actions while in office fall under the general purview of the presidential immunity doctrine, meaning that their argument is that Jack Smith cannot bring these charges against Trump at all because Trump was acting in his official capacity as the commander in chief when he was questioning the election results on January the 6th. That's the argument that Trump's lawyers are now making to the appeals court over in Washington, D.C., trying to get the entirety of this case dismissed. The first hearing is scheduled for January the 9th of next year, January 9th of 2024. And so here is a roadmap for how this whole thing might play out. If the appeals court rules in Trump's favor, the prosecutors will naturally appeal that decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. Conversely, if the appeals court rules against Trump, then Trump's lawyers will also appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Basically, regardless of who wins, the case is gonna get appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Then, if the Supreme Court rejects to hear the case, then whatever the appeals court ruled will stand as the final decision as to whether or not Trump can be brought to trial. However, if the Supreme Court does decide to take up the case, then it'll ultimately be the Supreme Court which decides whether or not Trump was covered under the presidential immunity doctrine. That's generally the roadmap for how this case will progress in the future. And as you can see, this type of a process might take a while, which is why it's unlikely that this case will start before the general election. In fact, looking back at the roadmap, it appears that the only scenario where in this case does start before the general election is if the appeals court rules against Trump, and then the Supreme Court declines to take up the case at all. That is really the only scenario to have this case start before the general election. We'll just have to wait and see what actually happens. If you'd like to read a deeper analysis of this particular case, I'll throw that down into the description box below this video for you to check out. And now, let's head on over to the state of West Virginia where President Trump was just handed another legal victory. Specifically, West Virginia was one of the 26 states where lawsuits were filed to get Trump off the ballot. However, like every other state except for Colorado, just earlier today, a West Virginia judge rejected the bid to remove Trump from the state's election ballot. The case in West Virginia was brought forth by a man named John Anthony Castro. He is technically a Republican presidential candidate with very little support. Quote, Mr. Castro, who is based in Texas, has filed at least two dozen lawsuits against the former president to remove him from the respective state's ballots in recent weeks, alleging that Trump is ineligible for office under the 14th Amendment because he provided aid and comfort to January 6th insurrectionists. Castro has claimed Trump's candidacy would harm him by drawing away votes and fundraising. And so using this general argument, Mr. Castro has been trying to get Trump kicked off the ballots across many different states, although I will mention that the Colorado case, which actually did succeed, we discussed that in the previous episode, was not one of those states. The Colorado case was not brought forth by Mr. Castro, but instead by two other left-wing nonprofits. Regardless, getting back to West Virginia, Mr. Castro's argument in this particular case is that since he is technically a Republican presidential candidate, he has standing to raise this case against President Trump. However, the judge overseeing this case, she did not buy that argument. Specifically, Judge Irene Berger, who, for your reference, was appointed to the bench by Barack Obama, she ruled just earlier today that Mr. Castro does not have standing to be filing this lawsuit. Quote, Mr. Castro's complaint relies on supposition and speculation that if Mr. Trump were removed from the ballot, that his voters and contributors would default to other candidates, including Mr. Castro. He supplies no specifics to support the conclusion that Trump voters would become Castro voters if his suit was successful. The evidence establishes that he has no campaign offices, staff, or advertising in West Virginia, does not appear in polling, has little name recognition among West Virginia Republican primary voters, and has extremely minimal campaign funds, vastly insufficient to run an actual campaign. If there were any question as to whether the allegations in the complaint are sufficient to overcome a facial challenge, the evidentiary submissions remove any doubt that Mr. Castro's purported campaign exists as a vehicle for pursuing litigation, not votes. Essentially, the judge in the case ruled that Mr. Castro does not have standing because whether or not Trump is on the ballot has no discernible effect on Mr. Castro's electability in the state of West Virginia. And so, another one of the cases to get Trump kicked off the ballot has been defeated. However, there are still two other things that are worth mentioning here. The first is that there are still about 15 different lawsuits across many other states also trying to get Trump kicked off the ballot in those respective states. But most of those cases will likely become moot as soon as the U.S. Supreme Court takes up the Colorado case. Because after the Colorado Supreme Court ruled against President Trump and they effectively kicked him off the Colorado ballot, well, Trump's legal team, they vowed to appeal that decision all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court as soon as possible. Now, given the gravity of that particular case, the U.S. Supreme Court is very, very, very likely to take it up. And their ruling, well, it won't apply just to the state of Colorado. In the coming weeks, the U.S. Supreme Court will likely decide for the entire country whether or not the 14th Amendment applies to Trump in the 2024 election. And as soon as they do, all these myriad lawsuits across the whole nation looking to kick him off the ballot will suddenly become irrelevant. But until then, well, this one in West Virginia has been defeated. If you'd like to read the full ruling from the West Virginia judge, I'll throw a link to the PDF version of it down into the description box below if you're the type of person that likes to dig into the weeds. And all I ask in return is that as you're making your way down there to the description box to check out that ruling, you take a super short detour to smash those like and subscribe buttons. Smashing that like button ensures that this video reaches ever more people via the YouTube algorithm, while smashing that subscribe button will ensure that every time we publish a new episode, well, it'll hit your newsfeed every time we publish it. 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