Yesterday, a D.C. Circuit Court panel issued a 57-page unanimous decision rejecting Donald Trump’s claims of presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for his actions in trying to overturn the 2020 election. The panel’s comprehensive and detailed decision systematically rejected each of Trump’s arguments, which ranged from dubious to borderline frivolous.
In his effort to delay his criminal prosecution(s) for as long as possible, Trump will undoubtedly appeal. He could either first seek review by the full D.C. Circuit—a step the panel discouraged—or go directly to the Supreme Court. Either way, the case will surely land at the Supreme Court eventually. When it does, the Court should decline to hear it.
The last thing the Supreme Court needs is another politically charged Trump case—and another that would have to be decided on an expedited basis. It already has two Trump-related cases and may get more in addition to this one. Most notably, it will hear argument tomorrow on the case seeking to disqualify Trump from the 2024 presidential ballot under section 3 of the 14th Amendment. This is a more challenging case legally, and one the Court had no real choice but to accept given the already many and varied administrative and judicial decisions on the issue.
While Trump has a strong political interest in dragging out his criminal cases as long as he can, there is an obvious countervailing public interest in resolving them as soon as possible—ideally months before the 2024 election. However, there is a more basic reason the Supreme Court should decline the immunity case: there is simply no need for the Court to take it up under its usual criteria for review.
The Trump immunity case is, of course, highly politically significant. It also raises issues that are certainly interesting legally and largely unprecedented. (Fortunately, Trump is our first president to have engaged in conduct sufficiently egregious to trigger four separate criminal indictments.) However, the Supreme Court does not exist to weigh in on every publicly important federal legal issue. Rather, its role is to provide consistency and finality in federal statutory and constitutional law when its intervention is needed. Its consistent practice is to be highly selective in the cases it accepts for review.
There is no such compelling need here. The D.C. Circuit’s decision does not conflict with other decisions, as does the Trump disqualification case. Also, the bottom-line outcome of the decision appears clearly correct in its specific context. There may be serious issues regarding presidential immunity from prosecution in some future contexts, but this hardly seems true of Trump’s conduct at issue here. Thus, this case would not be a good vehicle for addressing more nuanced and challenging aspects of the broader subject.
Moreover, the Supreme Court does not set a precedent or endorse a lower court decision or its reasoning by declining to review it. If it denied review here, the Court would remain free to consider presidential immunity issues in a future case in the unfortunate event one arises. Alternatively, it could revisit the issue in this or another Trump case if one resulted in conviction and subsequent appeal based on a more developed record.
The Court wisely rejected Special Counsel Jack Smith’s invitation to decide the Trump immunity case by leapfrogging the D.C. Circuit. It should now likewise reject Trump’s appeal from that decision.