Trump Celebrates Supreme Court Rejecting Jack Smith’s ‘Desperate Attempt’

Donald Trump celebrated the Supreme Court’s decision to deny Special Counsel Jack Smith’s request to consider whether the former president has immunity from prosecution.

Trump took to his Truth Social media app to say that the Supreme Court had “rejected Deranged Jack Smith’s desperate attempt to short circuit our Great Constitution.”

Trump, frontrunner for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, said he was “looking forward to the very important arguments on presidential immunity in front of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.”

The 45th president said the court had “unanimously” rejected Smith’s gamble to leapfrog the Appeals Court and have the Supreme Court immediately look into the issue. There were no dissenting opinions made public, but this does not confirm there were no disagreements among court justices.

Trump believes he has immunity from charges that he interfered in the 2020 election because he was president when the alleged offences occurred. The ruling on presidential immunity will therefore be a landmark case, but Smith’s writ of certiorari argument was that this would be a long and drawn-out procedure likely to delay the scheduled start of the trial.

He asked the Supreme Court if “a former President is absolutely immune from federal prosecution for crimes committed while in office or is constitutionally protected from federal prosecution when he has been impeached but not convicted before the criminal proceedings begin.”

Trump’s lawyers argued that “no president ever faced criminal prosecution for his official acts” and the Supreme Court issued only a brief reply.

“The petition for a writ of certiorari before judgment is denied,” the court said.

Whatever the appellate court decision on immunity is, it is likely to be sent to the Supreme Court for review. The March 4 trial start date is less likely.

Hailing a victory, Trump wrote: “I was President, it was my right and duty to investigate, and speak on, the rigged and stolen 2020 Presidential Election.”
There is no evidence the 2020 presidential election was stolen.

In Washington, D.C. Trump is charged with: conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding; and conspiracy against rights.

He denies all of the charges against him and says the charges are politically motivated, something echoed by his close advisers and members of his team.

Newsweek has approached the Department of Justice for comment via email after Donald Trump Jr. wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, that the “The Supreme Court just rejected Jack Smith’s attempt to rig an election.”

He said Smith had asked to “bypass normal procedure and the appellate court regarding my father’s challenge to the fake insurrection January 6 indictments.”

In an email to donors from Trump’s political action committee, the former president appealed for more funds. “The Supreme Court just denied the Biden prosecutor’s emergency request to rob me of my right to presidential immunity,” he said. “But the battle is not over.”