The watchdog organization American Oversight, which is not a party to the case, successfully petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to accept its friend-of-the-court brief on the ground that it provides a “unique perspective.”
Indeed it does. The brief makes the apparently compelling argument that the court shouldn’t be hearing this appeal at all because it lacks jurisdiction — that is, the power to consider it in the first place. If the court agrees, it would mean dismissing the appeal and returning the case to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, abruptly aborting Trump’s best opportunity to delay the federal Jan. 6 trial.
Hot jam, that’s some good lawyering. Basically you can’t appeal your case until you’re convicted of something, unless it’s otherwise specifically protected by law.
Nothing Trump is claiming immunity for is specifically protected by law, so he can only appeal after he receives judgment.
Which makes sense.
The supreme court decided this unanimously in 1989 and could actually prevent any form of appeal until judgment.
And Scalia wrote the decision! So now Trump’s team has to either lose their chance to appeal or fight against one of the darlings of conservative judiciary. It’s beautiful.
Remember that they didn’t let Obama appoint a justice in the last year of his term, but did allow Trump to do so. Cognitive dissonance is their native language.
That was just plain hypocrisy, they perfectly knew what they were doing.
As if Republicans felt shame.
They do, but it needs a group of people laughing at one of them. Republicans, and by extension any authoritarian, hates being thought of being laughed at or humiliated. They are unable to recover and will dwell on it permanently, like how Trump stole his brothers inheritance because of a mashed potato incident when he was 7.
Humiliation works beautifully on the right.
He is innocent until proven guilty by a judge or jury, after all. Why would anyone be able to appeal a decision that hasn’t happened yet?
This is the point - he isn’t.
…of course, that was never going to stop him - the principle underpinning all of this is that the rules only matter to Trump and the GOP as far as they can be used to harm their enemies and protect themselves.