'Let's not read anything into that': Trump's Supreme Court case spurs replies from experts

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'Let's not read anything into that': Trump's Supreme Court case spurs replies from experts
Supreme Court 2022, Image via Fred Schilling, Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States

Legal analysts are up in arms Wednesday morning after the U.S. Supreme Court revealed it would accept arguments for Donald Trump's New York state case, which some say should have gone to the New York State Supreme Court instead.

Trump's legal team also submitted a request to the top court in New York, however.

Trump is demanding that the Supreme Court intervene in his sentencing, which is scheduled for Friday, January 10. However, the incoming president claims he's immune from the guilty verdict and enjoys the same immunity protections as a president-elect.

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Former impeachment lawyer Norm Eisen told CNN on Tuesday night, "It was SCOTUS that enabled Trump to dodge accountability for his criminal wrongdoing. Now SCOTUS has Trump's NY appeal—& they may be willing to help him again."

Writing for MSNBC's opinion pages, former federal prosecutor Joyce White Vance had one big question. "This morning, Trump asked SCOTUS to delay his sentencing in a NY state court on Friday. The Judge has already said he won't sentence Trump to time in prison. So why is Trump fighting so hard to keep it from happening?"

Harvard emeritus Professor Laurence Tribe, who taught Constitutional Law, commented, "Predictably, President-elect Trump has asked the Court he has carefully stacked to accord him all the privileges of the office he has yet to occupy. The legal flimsiness of his request isn’t likely to matter much with these Justices. Hope I’m proven wrong, but I’m not optimistic."

Legal reporter Cristian Farias commented, "I really hope Sonia Sotomayor, the circuit justice for the jurisdiction that covers Manhattan, and a former assistant district attorney herself, can inform her colleagues that this is not how any of this works. If anyone can knock some sense into them, it’s her. Maybe."

Senior Lawfare editor Roger Parloff politely asked, "Let's not read anything into the fact that Trump's SCOTUS docket number is ... 666."

Indeed, Trump's docket number in this matter is 24A666. It's the number often associated by Christians as the sign of the Antichrist, cited in The Book of Revelation 13:18.

MSNBC legal analyst Kristy Greenberg posted the GIF of the character Charlie from "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," outlining his conspiracy theories. She remarked, "Judge Cannon trying to find a way to delay Trump’s NY sentencing from Florida."

Reuters crime and justice reporter Brad Heath pointed out: "Can Donald Trump ask the courts to delay his criminal sentencing, then turn around and argue that the delay means it's too late and the case must be dismissed? You bet he can."

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'Slave tourism' argument in Trump-friendly SCOTUS brief flagged by legal expert

A law professor flagged a legal theory from a Trump amicus brief that he says would let foreigners bring enslaved people into the U.S.

During an interview on the Legal AF podcast, legal expert Paul Gowder talked about American legal scholar Richard Epstein and an argument he made in an amicus brief filed in Trump's birthright citizenship case. Earlier this month, the Supreme Court ruled against Trump's bid to end birthright citizenship, and Epstein filed the brief on Trump's side.

Gowder explained that Epstein argued that the phrases "subject to the jurisdiction" and "within the jurisdiction" have different meanings in the Constitution. Epstein observed that the phrase "subject to the jurisdiction" is used in the 14th Amendment, which guarantees birthright citizenship, and the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery.

Epstein interprets that to mean that those two amendments can only apply to people who are members of society in the United States, or "subject" to the jurisdiction, not simply within it, according to Gowder.

"Richard Epstein wants to read 'subject to the jurisdiction' to mean like in more control of the U.S., basically a member of the U.S. community, not somebody who's just passing through," Gowder explained.

That would allow Epstein to argue, "We can read the 14th Amendment to exclude tourists and to exclude undocumented people," Gowder said. But with slavery and the 13th Amendment, "he just, like, embraces the notion that therefore the 13th Amendment must mean that if somebody from a country that has legal slavery comes to the U.S. as a tourist, they can bring their slaves with them," Gowder explained.

"Like, what?" Gowder said in dismay as he described Epstein's idea as "slave tourism."

Gowder stressed that Epstein isn't a fringe legal scholar and described him as a "very, very famous NYU law professor, worshipped by the [Federalist Society], like basically, for a certain kind of right-wing thinker, people on the right often think he's like the greatest legal mind of his generation."

However, for Gowder, Epstein is "completely nuts."

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Trump 'really angered' during his speech by act that left him vowing 'revenge': journalist

A journalist pointed out that Trump's speech revealed what angered him much more than election meddling.

During an episode of The Daily Beast Podcast, executive editor Hugh Dougherty looked back at Trump's Thursday night speech on election security. Trump had touted it as a "primetime" speech earlier in the week, and what left him fuming more than election meddling was how it was snubbed by major television networks like ABC and NBC.

"That's the thing that really angered him," Dougherty said. "He wanted this speech to be on prime time. There's nothing he loves more than being on prime time. There's nothing he loves more than ratings, and he was boycotted. Effectively, he was switched off."

Trump showed that he was enraged by the snub more than anything because "the rest of the speech was, if I'm honest, a bit low T," Dougherty said.

"He was raspy," Dougherty said. "He was not quite slumped, but he was not standing energetically, and he went through a whole lot of grievances."

Dougherty noted that Trump did seem "very sore" about losing a presidential election. "He's very sore about what happened six years ago," Dougherty said. "And he became president again, but he can't get over that. He lost."

By contrast, "the most alive bit of this speech on Thursday night was when he demanded that they face revenge for not showing their speech," Dougherty said, referring to how Trump complained that networks such as ABC and NBC were "part of a plot."

Trump suggested that ABC and NBC should lose their broadcast licenses for not airing his remarks, reporting by The Daily Beast noted, adding that the White House Rapid Response Team even went after members of the press for their coverage afterwards.

DHS chief's election threats shut down as critics tell him he has 'zero power'

Online critics scoffed at threats from the head of the Department of Homeland Security that he would mandate election changes.

At a press conference where DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin threatened to jail state officials, he also said that he plans to make "mandatory" changes to elections, including having states "scrub" their voter rolls. Mullin's remarks came the day after Trump delivered a speech about supposed election security vulnerabilities.

While reactions were swift to his threat to jail state officials who don't cooperate, with blue states daring him to follow through, online critics pointed out that Mullin doesn't have any power to implement the sweeping election changes he planned to mandate.

"Yeah, no lil buddy," former GOP operative Rick Wilson responded on X. "That's not how this works."

"Someone should read the Constitution," wrote Melanie D'Arrigo, a former Democratic congressional candidate and the executive director of the Campaign for New York Health. "The executive Branch cannot mandate states to make changes to how they administer elections."

"Senate Republicans, this is the crap you pretend will not happen when Trump nominees sit in front of you and lie," complained Michael Steele, a political commentator and former chairman of the Republican National Committee. "And you know they are lying. The DHS secretary has NO role to play in our elections. You know that too. 'Mandatory' my a--!"

"Ha! No he's not," immigration attorney and policy analyst Aaron Reichlin-Melnick posted in response to Mullin's claims. "DHS has literally zero power to do this. The Trump admin has lost every single lawsuit on their efforts to get state voter data or change voter requirements. The power to administer elections is given to the states."

"This would be actual proof of rigging an election," commented disability rights advocate James Tate.

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