Donald Trump may have handpicked three members of the Supreme Court’s conservative majority. That doesn’t mean they are doing him any favors.

Former President Donald Trump has tried every legal trick in the book to postpone his four upcoming criminal trials past election day.

But his master plan just ran into a big problem.

That’s because the Supreme Court showed it’s willing to move at lightning speed this week, when it agreed to fast-track an urgent request from Special Counsel Jack Smith about an issue that risks jamming up the legal works. In a system that can sometimes take years to reach resolution, the high court just got back to Smith in less than one day.

In other words, the Supreme Court just showed it understands the urgency of the situation. While this week’s action was only an early indicator and hardly a final decision on the merits of the pending appeal related to Trump’s Jan. 6 case, the court reacted with the kind of warp speed that suggests Trump’s attempt to bog things down could be doomed.

  • pelespirit@sh.itjust.works
    71·
    11 months ago

    First of all, according to the lawyer on the Rachel Maddow show it only takes 4 justices to bring it to a vote. It doesn’t mean they don’t have his back, we just don’t know.

    Second, they are very unpredictable and will vote for/against randomly, we just don’t know. This is another wait and see, they could stall everything until after the election.

    We need to talk about the corruption in the SCOTUS.

      • naeap@sopuli.xyz
        925·
        11 months ago

        How to decide who is just?
        Edit: ehm…I really was thinking about how this could be made fair without just punishing wrong doing.
        As a fan of ‘no power for noone’ I’m very sceptical of anyone choosing someone who is just. So I’m not sure if this system can ever live up to its name, because it’s always lacking behind thanks to the speed of social system and law change

        • Alien Nathan Edward@lemm.eeEnglish
          462·
          11 months ago

          I don’t need to be able to tell you exactly how many grains of sand make a desert in order to tell you that the Sahara is a desert and I don’t need to fully define “just” vs “unjust” to tell you that going on thousand dollar/day vacations with someone who has business before your court after and taking on cases where there is no injured party in order to overturn precedent is unjust

        • gsfraley@lemmy.world
          30·
          11 months ago

          The work is moreso on the inverse, making sure it’s not unjust. No matter how you slice it, someone’s going to take issue on the outcome of each ruling.

          What IS easy to quantify is the sheer number of legal scholars and domain experts sounding the alarm that many rulings are inconsistent with previously established law (and in many cases having profound negative consequences on the stability of our society), and that there are frequent conflicts of interest on a huge number of cases (cough cough Thomas).

          • pelespirit@sh.itjust.works
            19·
            11 months ago

            And Roberts, he seems to be not mentioned as much, but he’s just as corrupt.

            • Jane Roberts was paid more than $10 million by a host of elite law firms, a whistleblower alleges.
            • At least one of those firms argued a case before Chief Justice Roberts after paying his wife hundreds of thousands of dollars.
            • Details of Jane Roberts’ work come as Congress struggles to reform the Court’s self-policed ethics.

            A nepo bribe taker, a straight up bribe taker, a rapist and a Christian extremest walk into a bar. The bartender says, “You can’t do your dirty business here SCOTUS.”

        • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
          12·
          11 months ago

          How about striking anyone who commits perjury? Or anyone who accepts bribes? Those seem like low hanging fruit where we should all be able to find common ground.

        • Something_Complex@lemmy.world
          1·
          11 months ago

          I agree man it feels like they are bitting into their own tail.

          I mean maybe that judge that has already been proven that he took brides .

          Idk about anything else from anyone else. But completely agree, this type of midset from people who are far from the situation only makes us as bad as republicans wanting to overtrow the gov.

          Extremists usually don’t fix much

        • Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social
          17·
          11 months ago

          Why don’t we have a court that’s above all the other ones. Some kind of absolute, all-powerful, mighty court that rules on all the other courts and decides if it’s just.

          We could call it: Court Supreme

            • Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social
              4·
              11 months ago

              Lawyers will need to roll a Burrito Supreme while making their arguments. Then it is eaten by the bailiff and points are deducted for each piece of food that is spilled.

              Why? Because only the pure of heart can roll a good burrito.

              • pingveno@kbin.social
                1·
                11 months ago

                Are you sure Judge Gen, Almighty Judge on High of All Beings Living and Dead for All Eternity, is not the more appropriate judge of this sort of thing?

    • Milk_Sheikh@lemm.ee
      12·
      11 months ago

      This is your reminder that Marbury v Madison was an unprecedented usurpation of power by SCOTUS, to assign themselves the incredible role of final arbiter on all things dealing with all three branches of government, judicial, legislative, and executive. Nobody else comes CLOSE to that level of oversight.

      We’ve gone along with it all, but it’s a constitutional question/crisis that’s been brewing for over 200 years. Almost came to the surface during reconstruction and FDR, but the Robert’s court has a growing judicial credibility gap along with far too much corruption.

      A typical limit in the corporate world for gifts sits around $250. Ethical codes of conduct compel workers to flatly refuse gifts or favors, or risk their jobs. The Supremes have a demonstrated track record of accepting hugely generous gifts and services, and actively rebuff investigation or rebuke.

    • Nougat@kbin.social
      4·
      11 months ago

      I heard Woodward and/or Bernstein saying that because it’s on an expedited track, it actually takes five votes to bring the case before SCOTUS, not four.

  • mateomaui@reddthat.comEnglish
    231·
    11 months ago

    Trump recently argued that the Appellate Court should deny Smith’s request to expedite its review—and even compared Smith to the Grinch who stole Christmas, for allegedly attempting to make attorneys and support staff work through the holidays.

    Trump’s team wrote: “It is as if the Special Counsel “growled, with his Grinch fingers nervously drumming, ‘I must find some way to keep Christmas from coming. … But how?’”

    LOL

    Coming from the douche who consistently issues the worst holiday statements ever, that shit is hilarious!

  • Lasherz12@lemmy.world
    11·
    11 months ago

    It looks like maybe Clarence Thomas and Alito want to fast track their next big round of sugar daddy amenities.

  • KoboldCoterie@pawb.socialEnglish
    10·
    11 months ago

    Notably this is just them agreeing to take the case, not ruling on it, so it’s still theoretically possible that they could rule in Trump’s favor, but it’s a good omen (as the article notes).

    • assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world
      1·
      11 months ago

      If they wanted to support Trump, their smartest move would’ve been to delay it. Taking the case and then ruling for Trump is just going to make them look even worse, and they seem to actually care about that.

      I’m guessing Scalia and Thomas, who should recuse because of his wife, will support Trump here and hem and haw; the liberal justices will go against Trump; Roberts will go against Trump because legacy; and at least one of the Trump Three – Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett – will also go against Trump. Gorsuch seems like someone who actually sticks to his principles when they go against what a conservative is “supposed” to do, so my money’s on him.

  • SCB@lemmy.world
    8·
    11 months ago

    Trump’s team wrote: “It is as if the Special Counsel “growled, with his Grinch fingers nervously drumming, ‘I must find some way to keep Christmas from coming. … But how?’”

    This is like when you know you’re gonna bomb an assignment in college so you just get drunk and have fun with it

  • ares35@kbin.social
    5·
    11 months ago

    OR… the moron majority of this scotus has already decided to rule in favor of dinglebutt.

    • wolfpack86@lemmy.world
      9·
      11 months ago

      This is not impossible, but I believe gorsuch will be an odd one out siding with the sane half. The “plain text” doesn’t give him a free pass. Roberts I think will also fall on the sane side.

      The rest, who fuckin knows.

    • mateomaui@reddthat.comEnglish
      6·
      11 months ago

      Doubtful they would do that, because it would automatically mean Joe Biden or other Dems cannot be held accountable for anything while President either, real or imagined.