The Supreme Court rejecting Jack Smith's request to expedite former President Donald Trump's presidential immunity claims is a win for the former president — but he is far from out of the woods yet, argued former White House ethics czar Norm Eisen on a CNN panel Friday.
"There are ... accelerating factors that may come into play," said Eisen. "The Supreme Court, when it gets it, may simply say, as they did in Trump v. Thompson, the big case about whether Congress could investigate Trump and could pierce the executive privilege, cert denied. They did the same thing when the special master was appointed, 11th Circuit overturned that in the Mar-a-Lago documents case. They refused to hear it. That could be an accelerant ... and another thing that could accelerate, the D.C. Circuit has the power to turn the stay of the case down or off."
"Personally, I think Jack Smith was too conservative in not fighting to say, I want to do those things that will keep the case going, like jury selection, I just won't empanel the jury," he continued. "This panel is going to be by reading their opinions, studying their careers. They think this immunity is inimical to American law, it's borderline frivolous."
ALSO READ: A neuroscientist’s guide to surviving Christmas with Trump-loving relatives
But one of the biggest potential issues for Trump, he said, is that he's still facing other state-level cases — and one, Manhattan prosecutor Alvin Bragg's business fraud case, already has a trial date ready to go.
Bragg, said Eisen, "didn't count on all these projections and schedules and orders. He said, I'm a prosecutor, I've got a trial date, March 25th, 2024, and he's reaffirmed that he's ready to go. So we will see a case."
"And that brings in this polling where the American people, in that big New York Times/Siena poll, a 14-point swing in the six swing states if there's a conviction," he added. "So it is going to be a very unpredictable calendar politically and legally in the first six months of 2024."
Watch the video below or at the link.
Norm Eisen says Alvin Bragg is still ready to gowww.youtube.com
