With the D.C. Appeals Court rejecting former President Donald Trump's claim of absolute immunity from the federal election interference case, all eyes are now on the Supreme Court to see if they will review the case — potentially delaying Trump's trial for months more and possibly even past the election.
Legal analyst Lisa Rubin told MSNBC's Alicia Menendez on Friday what to look for.
"Let's talk about the D.C. court giving the Trump team until Monday to file their appeal to the Supreme Court, that is this Monday," said Menendez. "Trump said he'll file an appeal worth remembering. What the possible scenarios are, could this be back in Judge Chutkan's hands?"
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"It could be, but I want to correct something briefly," said Rubin. "What Trump has to file Monday isn't actually his petition for review or an appeal by the Supreme Court, it's really a request to stay the D.C. Circuit from sending the case back to Judge Chutkan while he further appeals, and their response to that stay request will tell you everything you need to know and this is why. It's the difference between four votes and five."
"In order to get a stay from the Supreme Court you got to have five votes, however, an order for the Supreme Court to review a case, you only need four, so five people on the Supreme Court are going to have to vote in favor of staying this immunity case, or rather staying the case while Trump furthers his appeal in order to prevent it from getting sent back to Judge Chutkan," Rubin continued. "To answer your question, how soon could we know? We could know as soon as sometime next week. On the other hand, the Supreme Court has no calendar to obey but the one of its own making and can sit on the stay request ordering briefing on the petition for certiorari."
"The judge floated the nightmare scenario that the Supreme Court in ordering briefing and scheduling oral argument takes so much of its time that the case can't even be heard before the end of this Supreme Court term is interred over the summer," Rubin continued. "For example, as the Nixon case was, and instead bleeds over until the next Supreme Court term which ... starts the first Monday in October. There is a situation where there are no rules about timing, so we are going to have to watch very closely that Supreme Court docket for breadcrumbs on how this will go."
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