Supreme Court Justices Appear To Be Protecting Trump—Legal Analyst

Some Supreme Court justices appear to be protecting Donald Trump from his election fraud trial, a legal expert has said.

New York University law professor, Stephen Gillers, said that the upcoming Supreme Court hearings on Donald Trump's presidential immunity claim could end up like Bush v. Gore, when there were weeks of uncertainty about the 2000 presidential election result, before the court intervened.

And it was heavily criticized at the time over the partisan nature of its decision.

The Supreme Court has already refused a request by chief prosecutor, Jack Smith, to hear Trump's case on an expedited basis. That meant Trump's lawyers were able to take the case to the Washington D.C. appellate court, delaying the case, and conservative justices may hold up the case further now that it has reached America's highest court.

"We can't rule out the possibility that the court will remand [the Trump case] for fact finding, in which case there will likely be an evidentiary hearing," Gillers said.

"Unfortunately, the court has acted in a way that suggests that some justices wish to protect Trump by making a trial this year impossible. That would make this Bush v. Gore 2.0. I hope it's not true. The clue will be how long it takes to decide the case after oral argument," he said.

In Bush v. Gore, the Supreme Court granted an emergency stay to a recount of votes in Florida after the presidential election between Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore.

Oral arguments were heard on December 11, 2000, and a decision reached the next day on completely partisan lines.

Five of the six Republican-appointed justices (O'Connor, Kennedy, Rehnquist, Scalia and Thomas) sided with Bush and agreed that the recount should stop. The other justices (Souter plus Stevens, Bader Ginsburg and Breyer) sided with Gore, who wanted a recount. The dissenting opinions were hostile to the majority decision, which gave the presidential election to George W. Bush.

On February 28, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear Trump's claim of immunity in his federal election subversion criminal case.

The court said that oral arguments scheduled to take place during the week of April 22 would help decide whether or not ex-presidents have "presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for conduct alleged to involve official acts."

The former president's legal team had argued in appellate court that presidential immunity should invalidate his federal election subversion charges, which sprang from the investigations of Special Counsel Jack Smith.

The Supreme Court's agreeing to decide the matter will add a further delay to the start of any potential trial, which U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan had originally scheduled to begin on March 22.

​​Smith's investigation focused on Trump's actions leading up to and during the January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, when a group of his supporters violently protested the election, which Trump has said was stolen. Smith's investigation also looked into alleged efforts to submit false slates of pro-Trump electors to the Electoral College. Indicted on four felony counts, Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges and maintains that he is innocent of any wrongdoing.

Despite Nikki Hayley's Washington D.C. primary victory, Trump remains the front-runner to take the Republican nomination in the 2024 presidential election.

Newsweek sought email comment from Trump's attorney on Monday.

When the Supreme Court agreed in February to take the Trump case, author and National Black Justice Coalition co-founder Keith Boykin called the court's decision to schedule the hearing in April "an outrageous delay tactic."

Boykin believes that Bush v. Gore would be a short duration case compared to the Trump hearings.

"It only took 4 days for SCOTUS [Supreme Court Of The United States] to decide Bush v. Gore. Justice delayed is justice denied." Boykin, who was a White House aide to former President Bill Clinton, wrote on X, formerly Twitter, at the time.

Update 03/04/23 12:38 a.m ET: This article was updated to clarify that Justice Souter was appointed by President George H. W. Bush.