In Immunity Case, Trump Can Lose in Ways That Amount to a Win (NYT) [View all]

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/24/us/trump-immunity-case-supreme-court.html

https://archive.ph/ji7QM

In Immunity Case, Trump Can Lose in Ways That Amount to a Win
After the justices hear arguments on Thursday, how they decide may be just as important as what they decide.
By Adam Liptak
April 24, 2024

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One involves the timing of the court’s decision, which has received substantial attention given the relatively leisurely pace it has set for itself in the case. Even if Mr. Trump eventually and categorically loses, each passing week makes it more challenging for Jack Smith, the special counsel in the case, to complete the trial before the election.

The other, which has received less consideration but is no less important, is the possibility that the court’s ruling, even if issued promptly, will inject additional legal complications into the case that will take time to sort out.

The Supreme Court is unlikely to embrace the broadest version of Mr. Trump’s argument: that all of this was official conduct that cannot be the subject of a criminal prosecution. But the case is complicated enough that the justices may not issue a definitive ruling.

That is what happened in 2020, when another case involving Mr. Trump reached the justices just months before a presidential election. The question was similar to the one the court will consider on Thursday: whether Mr. Trump was entitled to a form of absolute presidential immunity allowing him to block prosecutors from obtaining his tax records.

In July 2020, Mr. Trump lost the case. But the loss was a kind of victory. The court sent the case back to the lower courts for more analysis, running out the clock.

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