Donald Trump's 'Strongest Argument' Against Jack Smith Has Glaring Problem

Donald Trump's claim to the Supreme Court that a trial judge has not delayed his election fraud case is not credible, a legal analyst has said.

MSNBC analyst Lisa Rubin was reacting to Trump's submission to the Supreme Court on Wednesday, in which he urged it not to review his claim that he has presidential immunity from his election fraud trial in Washington, D.C.

Trump wants the case to go through the appeal system before making its way to the Supreme Court, something prosecutors say is a maneuver to delay the trial until after the 2024 presidential election.

Trump was indicted on four counts of allegedly working to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the run-up to the January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. It is one of four criminal cases that Trump is facing while he campaigns as frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

He has pleaded not guilty to the charges in all four cases and has repeatedly said that they form part of a political witch hunt.

Newsweek reached out to Trump's attorney via email for comment on Thursday.

Trump is appealing the election fraud case to the Washington D.C. Court of Appeals, claiming he has presidential immunity. Prosecutor Jack Smith is seeking a ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court on the same question.

Trump's main argument to the Supreme Court is that Smith has no right to petition the court because he suffered no injury from Judge Tanya Chutkan's decision to freeze Trump's election fraud case while he appeals it to the lower court.

His lawyers mention Smith's lack of injury 12 times in Wednesday's Supreme Court submission.

Writing on X, formerly Twitter on Wednesday, Rubin said it was a "stretch" for Trump's lawyers to claim that Chutkan's decision to stay the trial is not causing a delay in the case, even if that was Trump's strongest argument.

If it was true that Chutkan had not delayed the trial, then "Trump would have nothing to appeal, and Chutkan would not have granted any stay," Rubin wrote.

In asserting that Smith has suffered no injury, Trump's lawyers say that Smith cannot claim he is an injured party and cannot go straight to the Supreme Court for a remedy.

That argument is based on the fact that Chutkan has already ruled that Trump does not have presidential immunity, and therefore, Smith has no complaint to bring to the Supreme Court.

Their submission relies heavily on the 2011 Supreme Court case Camreta v. Greene, in which government officials were granted qualified immunity by a lower court but could not use it in the Greene case because of details specific to it.

That case involved allegations that they violated a defendant's rights by conducting an in-school interview with a girl who was suspected of being the victim of sexual abuse.

Trump's lawyers said that this is the type of case that government officials could appeal directly to the Supreme Court because, even though they had won their legal argument, they had still suffered injury because their immunity could not be used in the case at the center of the dispute.

Trump's legal team's submission says that Smith's case is very different because Smith has won all his legal points without suffering any injury. They said the government lacks standing to appeal from "a district court judgment that decided all issues in its favor and thus does not injure it."

"Because the government is not injured by the decision, this case does not fall within the narrow class of cases where this Court has permitted a prevailing party to appeal from a lower-court victory," the submission states.

"In rare instances, this Court may grant a petition for review from a prevailing party, but that victor must suffer an ongoing traceable, redressable injury from the otherwise favorable decision of the lower court," it adds.

The Supreme Court said on December 11 that it would make an expedited decision on whether to hear Smith's case.