Trump asks Supreme Court to deny special counsel's request to quickly review immunity claims

Former President Donald Trump's attorneys asked the U.S. Supreme Court to put a hold on quickly ruling on special counsel Jack Smith's request for the high court to review the former president's appeal of charges related to the 2020 election on the grounds that he has presidential immunity. 

The Supreme Court should refrain from ruling on Smith's request until after a lower federal appellate court makes a decision on the issue, Trump's attorneys said Wednesday in a 44-page court filing. 

Smith had asked the court last week to quickly rule on whether Trump could be prosecuted for allegedly attempting to overturn the 2020 election in his favor and then playing a role in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, ahead of the planned trial start date of March 4, 2024, in the middle of the 2024 presidential primary season.

The special counsel justified the date by calling it of "paramount public importance" to hold the trial "as expeditiously as possible," but Trump's legal team wrote that "in an omission that speaks volumes, the Special Counsel never explains why March 4, 2024, is supposedly the only 'appropriate timetable' for this historic prosecution. That date has no talismanic significance."

Trump's attorneys also said that precedence favors allowing the lower appeals court to address the issue first before the Supreme Court. "What is 'imperative' ... is that this case be decided correctly, not that it be decided quickly," the lawyers wrote. 

The former president's legal team also argued that Smith's request to the Supreme Court "misstates the legal issue in this appeal by incorrectly framing it as whether absolute presidential immunity extends to 'crimes committed while in office,'" the former president's legal team said, arguing that Trump instead "asserted that a President is immune from prosecution for official acts." (emphasis original)

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