Thank you SCOTUS

This is what they have gifted Donald Trump by taking up the meritless immunity claim.

To understand how truly remarkable it is that the Supreme Court has agreed to consider former President Donald Trump’s demand for absolute immunity from criminal prosecution, it is necessary to have some sense of how the court treats other criminal defendants.

In that light, the court’s extraordinary and improper solicitude for Trump, the person who selected three sitting justices, is all too readily apparent. And the upshot is Trump may now succeed in delaying his federal trial for trying to overturn the 2020 election until after voters go to the polls in November.

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Justice Neil Gorsuch set the tone for this approach in 2019, when he complained that legal challenges to the death penalty were often used to stall or even derail execution. Courts, said Gorsuch, should “police carefully against attempts” to use constitutional challenges as tools to interpose unjustified delay.” In particular, he warned, “last-minute stays should be the extreme exception, not the norm.”

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Before 2020 and the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, it was common for the Supreme Court to grant stays to hear legal questions that arose at the last stage of a capital case. Since then, it has only granted two such stays. In the same period, it has also vacated nine stays on death sentences imposed by lower courts.

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And in January, the court declined to hear a challenge to Alabama’s novel use of nitrogen gas to execute Kenneth Smith. Witnesses described Smith’s resulting death as horrific — extended and torturous — and not at all painless as the state promised.

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In the last half of 2020, the court stepped aside as the federal government sprinted to execute 13 people — as many as had been killed in the previous six decades. Justice Sonia Sotomayor noted that the court “repeatedly sidestepped its usual deliberative processes” to enable an “expedited spree of executions.” In its haste to see punishment done, the court waved away its usual rules.

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All this makes the Supreme Court’s decision to hear Trump’s appeal for absolute immunity from all criminal charges even more unusual, and troubling.

Start with the weakness of Trump’s argument. There is absolutely no constitutional text, no precedent and no authority in the original debates over the Constitution’s ratification to support the idea for a former president’s absolute immunity.

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If the Supreme Court’s reputation takes a further hit from this move, it will not be simply because there is an air of impropriety about the decision. Rather, it is because the court is treating the presidential candidate of the party that appointed six of the nine justices with special favor so as to materially aid his presidential campaign. The problem here is not a matter of appearances. It suggests an improper and partisan act in its bones and marrow.

  Politico

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...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.