Law professor shows why 'political' Supreme Court ruled against Jack Smith and for Trump
There's a fairly simple reason why the Supreme Court refused special counsel Jack Smith's request to immediately take up former President Donald Trump's claim of presidential immunity, argued Georgia State law professor Anthony Michael Kreis on MSNBC Friday evening.
Simply put, he said, they are scared of appearing to be too harsh on the former president.
"Professor, in terms of recent history ... the court has taken up a lot of expedited cases since 2019, or even I believe 2018," said anchor Alex Wagner. "I think it's 20 cases that they have expedited on a variety of matters. Prior to that, I think they took up eight cases or ten cases after the Nixon case. This is something this court does with relative frequency. I wonder why this didn't rise to the level of, for example, President Biden's attempt to cancel student loan debt."
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"Yeah," said Kreis. "I think we all have to recognize that the United States Supreme Court is a political institution. Though it is a court, it has some — it has partisan interests and it also is considering the broader political dynamics of what is beneficial to the majority of the court ... I don't think they want to weigh in too quickly or to be pushing the thumb on the scales against Donald Trump in a way that will further jeopardize the court's legitimacy, from the majority's perspective."
"Of course, it's true that there have been major cases that have had national significance," Kreis continued. "There's a great case from the 1950s where Harry Truman was trying to take over steel mills that had a labor dispute. The Supreme Court heard that on an expedited basis. Same with the Nixon case. I think that this would certainly rise to that level."
"At the same time, we have to acknowledge that while this is an important case in terms of speaking to the heart of our democracy and the meaning of American democracy, it's also a criminal trial," he added. "There may be other factors weighing in there where the court doesn't want to be — doesn't want to appear to short-circuit things, where they might be more willing to do so in a civil proceeding without any kind of prosecutorial consequences."
Watch the video below or at the link.
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