Trump Asks Supreme Court Not to Consider That Thing He Said, Please

Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court on Wednesday to reject special counsel Jack Smith’s request for the justices to decide whether the former president is immune to prosecution for trying to overturn the 2020 election.

Trump has repeatedly claimed that he is immune to criminal proceedings because he was president at the time of his alleged crimes. Smith, who is investigating Trump for both trying to overturn the election and mishandling classified documents, filed an accelerated motion asking the Supreme Court directly to weigh in, jumping over a lower appeals court.

Trump’s legal team had until Wednesday to respond, and when they did, it was to beg the high court to stay out of it. His lawyers argued that Smith wanted the justices to “rush to decide the issues with reckless abandon.”

In reality, if the Supreme Court waits to rule until after a lower appeals court issues a decision, then the whole process could delay Trump’s trial. This is presumably what Trump and his lawyers want, since the trial is currently set to begin on March 4, the day before Super Tuesday. If the Supreme Court instead takes the case and rejects Trump’s argument, the trial will likely proceed on schedule.

Smith indicted Trump in August for the former president’s role in the January 6, 2021, insurrection and other attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Trump faces one count each of conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to corruptly obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against the right to vote.

Trump has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges and has insisted the case should be dismissed altogether. He argues that former presidents can’t be criminally charged for actions related to their official responsibilities. He did not explain how overturning an election was related to official presidential duties.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is presiding over the trial, rejected Trump’s immunity claim. Trump appealed her decision to a Washington federal appellate court, while Smith asked the Supreme Court to weigh in.

The Supreme Court justices, who will have to decide this matter one way or another, have given no indication of how they will rule. Trump appointed three members of the conservative-leaning bench, but the majority of the justices are also sticklers for the Constitution.

Kellyanne Conway explained the Democratic agenda on Wednesday—no, not the party’s policy platform, but the way individual Democrats spend each day.

Conway appeared on Fox News to criticize the historic Colorado Supreme Court decision disqualifying her former boss Donald Trump from the state’s 2024 presidential ballot. During her segment, Conway turned her ire to Democrats in general.

“I just think that Democrats wake up every morning … and they look at the calendar on the iPhone, and it says January 6, 2021. The date never changes,” she said as the hosts laughed.

“And then they get into an electric vehicle and go get an abortion.”

Conway was obviously trying to mock Democrats. But it doesn’t seem like such a bad thing for people to be able to drive a vehicle of their choice and go get a health care procedure without any issues.

What’s more, people probably should think regularly about January 6. The attack on the Capitol was and continues to be incredibly dangerous for democracy.

Some Democratic lawmakers couldn’t resist poking a little fun back.

Texas’s lieutenant governor has threatened to take President Biden off his state’s ballot in retribution for the Colorado Supreme Court ruling disqualifying Donald Trump from that state’s 2024 ballot.

In a historic decision, the Colorado justices ruled 4–3 late Tuesday that Trump had engaged in the January 6 insurrection and was therefore disqualified from running for office again. A few hours later, Lone Star State official Dan Patrick fired back.

“Seeing what happened in Colorado tonight, Laura, makes me think—except we believe in democracy in Texas—maybe we should take Joe Biden off the ballot in Texas for allowing eight million people to cross the border since he’s been president, disrupting our state,” Patrick told Fox News host Laura Ingraham.

Threatening to take someone off the ballot just because you disagree with them makes it kind of hard to believe you “believe in democracy.”

Biden has infuriated immigration advocates for continuing many of Trump’s draconian policies, but Patrick apparently prefers even harsher measures. Just this week, Texas passed a law that gives local judges the authority to deport undocumented immigrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.

Stephen Miller claimed Wednesday that the United States is being overrun by immigrants and can only be saved by “massive” deportations.

The white nationalist and former Trump White House adviser was backing up chilling comments from his old boss, who over the weekend echoed Adolf Hitler by accusing immigrants of “poisoning the blood of our country.”

“We are being conquered,” Miller said to Fox News’s Jesse Watters. “This is a complete resettlement of America in real time. It took hundreds of years, going back long even before our founding, going back all the way to the earliest days of the colonies in America to slowly build everything that we have.

“And now we have millions of people coming in from different cultures and different ways of living and different belief systems. They’re going to take those belief systems with them to America,” he continued. “So, a generation from now, I am telling you Jesse, people will not know the country that they are living in. These consequences are permanent. Unless there’s massive large-scale deportations by the millions, it will be irrevocable.”

Stripped of the incendiary rhetoric, this is really just a definition of how immigration works: People move to another country, bringing the culture of their homeland. In fact, Miller implicitly acknowledges that America was colonized by white people who emigrated from England—with “belief systems” that were, needless to say, different from those of the people already living in North America.

Of course, countless millions of others have since come to America “from different cultures and different ways of living and different belief systems,” but Miller isn’t one to let a few basic historical facts get in the way of his narrative. He’s simply opposed to the nonwhite people immigrating to America today.

Miller is reportedly on the short list for attorney general if Trump is elected in 2024. If Miller returns to power, he could help implement those “massive large-scale deportations” he called for. He was already the mastermind behind some of Trump’s worst immigration policies, including separating families at the southern border and banning Muslims from entering the country.

And Trump is likely to go along with Miller’s suggestions. The former president appears to be making the Hitler parallels a major part of his 2024 campaign persona.

Miller also claimed Wednesday that the Colorado Supreme Court banning Trump from the state presidential ballot was part of the “great replacement theory,” the far-right theory that white people are being replaced by nonwhite immigrants. This conspiracy theory is growing increasingly popular among Republicans.

“You see a two-front attack on democracy,” he said. “They are saying to American citizens, ‘You can’t vote. You don’t have a voice. You can’t be heard.’ And they’re also saying, ‘We’re bringing in new people that we think will agree with us and support us, and their families will vote for us, and they are going to be the new base of power in this country.’”

Republicans are up in arms over Donald Trump getting banned from the Colorado presidential ballot, a sign of how much power he still has in the party.

The Colorado Supreme Court issued a historic decision late Tuesday, ruling 4–3 that Trump had engaged in the January 6 insurrection and was therefore disqualified from running for office again. Republicans have, predictably, fallen in line behind him.

Multiple lawmakers accused the state’s Supreme Court of election interference and voter suppression—which is pretty ironic given that the GOP opposes laws that would expand voter rights and 147 of its members in Congress voted to overturn the 2020 election results.

House Speaker Mike Johnson dismissed the ruling as “nothing but a thinly veiled partisan attack,” while Representative Elise Stefanik predicted the decision will “backfire and further strengthen President Trump’s winning campaign to Save America.”

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is not-so-secretly gunning to be Trump’s vice presidential pick, demanded the U.S. Supreme Court take up the case.

“The Democrats and 4 Colorado judges just stole the election away from the people of Colorado and robbed them of their right to vote for President Trump,” she said on X, formerly Twitter.

“This is an unprecedented First amendment violation that must be struck down by the SCOTUS.”

Senator Mike Lee called the ruling “lawless thuggery masquerading as jurisprudence” and then shared a very strange animation of dancing bananas, implying the U.S. is a “banana republic.”

“This irresponsible ruling will be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court and our legal team looks forward to helping fight for a victory,” Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel wrote on X.

Trump’s Republican primary opponents also slammed the ruling, instead of viewing it as an opportunity to actually beat the current front-runner. Nikki Haley said the decision should have been left to the voters instead of the judicial system, while Florida Governor Ron DeSantis accused Democrats of “abusing judicial power.”

Even Chris Christie, whose campaign platform is basically that he’s a Trump hater, said the ruling was “premature” because Trump hasn’t yet been tried for inciting insurrection. He also said the voters, not the courts, should decide whether Trump becomes president.

Vivek Ramaswamy, whose campaign is but a series of trolly stunts, pledged in a social media screed to withdraw his name from the Colorado ballot if Trump isn’t on it, which sounds more like a massive self-own than a measured protest.