“IF A PRESIDENT DOES NOT HAVE IMMUNITY, THE COURT WILL BE ‘OPENING THE FLOODGATES’ TO PROSECUTING FORMER PRESIDENTS. AN OPPOSING HOSTILE PARTY WILL BE DOING IT FOR ANY REASON, ALL OF THE TIME!” posted convicted felon former President Trump on Truth Social on Monday, at least the third or fourth time within the last few days he’s repeated the same talking points about his still currently successful effort to avoid going on trial in DC before the 2024 election on four felony charges stemming from his failed coup attempt after the 2020 election.

Nobody serious believes that the Supreme Court is going to give Joe Biden a blank check to do whatever he wants. The real “win” is that the Supreme Court (mostly) unnecessarily already has delayed this trial and few observers think it’s possible it go before a jury, much less even started, before the 2024 election. Most see Los Supremos imposing a review process requiring Circuit Judge Tanya Chutkan to rule on whether certain acts outlined in Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment as official acts of the presidency versus what were “private,” as in campaign-related, acts. Her rulings would of course open to interlocutory appeal and thus further delay, this already on top of 70-something days still remaining in the normal pre-trial schedule set by Chutkan.

We try to be optimistic about it, that maybe Smith and his team would be able to both circumvent such a review process and trim down the pretrial preparation period by dropping from the indictment the elements of the conspiracy that rely upon what could fall under “official acts” like the conversations Trump had with Mike Pence and the coup attempt inside the Justice Department where the fat fuck tried to install soon-to-be-disbarred scumbag Jeffrey Clark. Some of Smith’s guy’s arguments at the Supreme Court hinted that this could be the direction that they’ll go.

Of course the better way to operate here is to keep expectations low and that if these shitbag far right justices are hanging on to this ruling until the very end of the term (or who knows, maybe even next term) they were doing it with the clear intent of helping Trump avoid accountability.

(Side note: In a vacuum this is actually an important question that the Supreme Court should be pondering if you look at it from the perspective of, for example, some fucking racist hick DA in Texas trying to charge Biden over the “border invasion” after he leaves office. There absolutely should be some sort of test to differentiate official functions of the office versus private/political actions. It’s just that it’s not a close call on whether Trump attempted a coup to illegally remain in office and every “official” act he did alleged in the indictment was in service of it and the legitimate questions above are an all-too convenient cover for the MAGA justices to give Trump an assist.)

What sticks out though is that Trump obviously isn’t being optimistic about it himself. That he’s fucking ignorant and deliberately so on these sort of things will no doubt suffice as an explanation for most as to why he’s apparently freaking out again. Or if he does actually understand the outlines but is hyping up a “defeat” in anticipation of using it for material for his shitty fundraising emails to be sent immediately after the ruling (hopefully) drops by the end of next week. Just moments ago the court announced they were adding another opinion day on Friday, just like last week, a move often seen as indicating that at least one major, politically important ruling is nigh.

However if we’re indulging in optimism we might as well break out the good hopium: The opinion’s almost certainly already been written and the court is just taking their sweet time releasing it as they are wont to do. Since this is obviously pretty fucking important, more or less existential even to Trump, what if he’s privy to word that it’s not good for him, and not just that SEAL Team Six can’t be sent to murder political opponents? He and his minions have plenty of backchannels into the court’s clerks and staffers, to say nothing of the hardcore MAGA justices themselves. Could someone have given him the heads up that a 5-4 majority ruled that his crimes in the aftermath of his humiliating defeat in 2020 were just too far from what could remotely be considered to fall under “official acts”?

Sugarcoating aside, don’t we already have an example of a criminal case that went to trial without the expected “review” process imposed? Trump was president when he committed some of the crimes for which he was convicted in Manhattan last month, signing the checks to reimburse Michael Cohen for his payoff of Stormy Daniels from the Oval Office in 2017. Feels like what was very obviously not an “official act” in the normal people, practical sense should have been snagged up in the same trap the DC case has been for like six goddamned months now. Team Trump did in fact half-ass an interlocutory appeal to the New York State courts back in April saying they wanted it delayed until after the Supremes made their decision over US v Trump in DC – which the New York Appellate Division promptly tossed. Not clear why he didn’t at least try to petition his dudes Sam and Clarence to put a halt to New York v Trump given that element in Bragg’s indictment.

But that’s neither here nor there given Donald’s renewed panic over the looming opinion from the Supreme Court. That he just posted “‘HOW NON-CITIZENS ARE GETTING VOTER REGISTRATION FORMS ACROSS THE US – WELFARE OFFICES AND OTHER AGENCIES IN 49 US STATES ARE PROVIDING VOTER REGISTRATION FORMS TO MIGRANTS WITHOUT REQUIRING PROOF OF CITIZENSHIP…’ This is terrible, and the reason they want millions of people, many of them criminals, to pour into our Country. They are also using the big government agencies as campaign factories for ‘get out the illegal vote.’ WHERE HAS OUR COUNTRY GONE? IT IS SO SICK AND TIRED. THE DEMOCRATS HAVE NO SHAME. WE MUST STOP THIS IN THE COURTS, IMMEDIATELY!!!” after the immunity rant might be a sign that we’re simply overthinking his deranged bullshit.