The former president is now highly unlikely to stand trial in the Justice Department’s election interference case before November

The Supreme Court handed Donald Trump a massive victory on Wednesday by agreeing to rule on whether he is immune from prosecution for acts committed while he was president. The court will hear arguments on April 22 and won’t hand down a decision until June — which means it’s unlikely a trial in the Justice Department’s election interference case will commence before the election. If Trump wins the election, he’ll of course appoint an attorney general who will toss the case, regardless of how the Supreme Court rules this summer.

By Wednesday night, Trumpland was celebrating.

“Literally popping champagne right now,” a lawyer close to Donald Trump told Rolling Stone late on Wednesday.

  • OldWoodFrame@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    233
    ·
    10 months ago

    Call me old fashioned but it seems like a flaw in the legal system if it takes slightly longer than one 4-year presidential term to prosecute someone for interference in a presidential election.

    • Burn_The_Right@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      79
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      10 months ago

      The real screw up here was appointing a fucking conservative as attorney general.

      Never, ever show kindness to conservatives. Politeness and professionalism? Sure. But a conservative sees kindness as a weakness to exploit. That is just who they are at their core.

      Reaching across the aisle by appointing Merrick Garland was an extremely stupid move that could cost us our democracy.

    • frezik@midwest.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      56
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      10 months ago

      Yes, very. Federal judges have huge case loads, and expanding the size of the federal bench would be one way to fix that. At least doubling it, and quite possibly doubling it again.

      Democrats haven’t touched this because they’re spineless and don’t want to be seen to be stuffing the bench after Republicans already stuffed the bench.

      • TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        30
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        10 months ago

        Democrats haven’t touched this because they’re spineless and don’t want to be seen to be stuffing the bench after Republicans already stuffed the bench.

        I don’t even know if it’s just that they’re spineless. Part of me thinks that the majority of people in Congress don’t really mind a conservative judicial system.

        The vast majority of people in Congress are affluent white people, and they really have nothing to gain by replacing a conservative judge with a liberal one. A conservative judicial system isn’t going to stop them from leaving the country for an abortion, or change what the private schools teach their children. While a liberal judge may increase their taxes, make it harder to accept bribes, or even ruin their businesses by implementing labor laws.

        I just don’t really see anything that would really motivate anyone in Congress to enact a more fair judicial system.

        • Signtist@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          16
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          10 months ago

          Yeah, it seems to me that Democrats are in a pretty nice position for themselves - they can claim to be for the people, while lamenting that they’re unable to make the big changes that the people want due to conservatives holding them back. If they didn’t have that excuse, they might actually need to coordinate those changes, which they likely don’t want to do.

          • Burn_The_Right@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            10 months ago

            That’s certainly true for the neoliberals, who are the majority of the DNC. Unfortunately, we don’t have a viable progressive party. We have a conservative party and a more conservative party.

        • dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          7
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          10 months ago

          I don’t even know if it’s just that they’re spineless. Part of me thinks that the majority of people in Congress don’t really mind a conservative judicial system.

          Sadly, I think you’re right. Occams razor would suggest that’s what we’re seeing here. IMO, it’s far more likely that politicians are being self-serving (power corrupts) than being a bunch of shrinking violets in circumstances where it hurts everyone else.

      • Dadifer@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        11
        ·
        10 months ago

        Didn’t the turtle Mitch refuse to fill hundreds of members of the federal judiciary?

        • frezik@midwest.social
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          11
          ·
          10 months ago

          Yes, that’s exactly why Trump was able to fill so many. His administration was very slow to fill vacancies at other federal agencies, but not judges. Shows exactly where they had their priorities.

    • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      28
      ·
      10 months ago

      Charles Manson never personally murdered anyone. There was no video of the crime. It took 2 years from the day his cult murdered people to Manson being sentenced to jail for life.

      3 years later after a live televised insurrection and not even a trial.

    • kandoh@reddthat.com
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      28
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      10 months ago

      Garland was gonna let him skate. It wasn’t until he refused to give back the classified documents that he crossed the line and Garland have the go-ahead to prosecute him for that. And once you’ve given permission to prosecute an ex-president for one thing, you can’t tell the other prosecutors who want to nail him for other crimes ‘no’.

      Garland should never have been picked as AG. He’s literally the guy democrats pick when they want to tell Republicans “Hey, we see you, we love you, and you have nothing to worry about from us. So please just be normal 💕”

    • Alien Nathan Edward@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      11
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      10 months ago

      it seems like a flaw in the legal system

      Oh no, this is exactly how it’s designed. The rich are above the law.