George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley predicted special counsel Jack Smith may “never see a March trial” Friday after the Supreme Court denied Smith’s plea to hear the case.
The Supreme Court rejected Smith’s request to provide expedited review of an appeal of a district court ruling by judge Tanya Chutkan that rejected a motion by Trump’s attorneys to dismiss the charges. “The impact of this decision on Smith is going to be anything but good,” Turley told “America Reports” co-host John Roberts and guest co-host Jacqui Heinrich.
“The reason he was so insistent on leapfrogging the D.C. Circuit is that he believes that this could end up endangering the March trial date,” Turley continued. “Now, that date, if you remember, was shoehorned by the court just before Super Tuesday. Everything has been frozen since the court looked at this question. So he may indeed lose that March date and then it’s a real problem. You go right over a cliff because this is a very jammed calendar. So it’s not clear if he could fit a trial between that date and the election.”
Chutkan paused pre-trial proceedings during the appeals process Dec. 13. Smith secured a four-count indictment of Trump relating to his efforts to contest the results of the 2020 election in August.
“The problem for Jack Smith is that he knows that whatever the D.C. circuit decides, there’s likely to be an appeal. So, he was willing to give up what many people assumed would be a favorable decision in order to maximize a favorable calendar,” Turley said. “Now, what happens now is not going to work as planned for Jack Smith. Once they hear this case in January, they have to write the opinion, they’ll do that as quickly as possible. But then, Trump’s people can do what’s called an appeal en banc, which is to ask the court as a whole to look at this question before they appeal to the Supreme Court. That will take time. And then if they en banc accept the case, he’ll never see a March trial. So then at that point, the Trump people can apply to the Supreme Court. So there’s a lot of runway now between him and that March date that he’s got to be able to cross, and the odds are he’s not going to be able to stick the landing.”
“Keep in mind, because everything has been frozen in D.C., there’s a lot of work that still has to be done for the trial,” Turley continued. “So as soon as all of this is done, it’s got to go back to the court and they’ve got to decide what they have time for, in terms of that trial. So the odds if you are going to Vegas right now are not on Jack Smith for a March trial.”
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