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In more good news for Donald Trump (besides NOT being killed by that bullet), the classified documents case has been dismissed based on an Appointments Clause violation -- basically, the argument (also made by Clarence Thomas in Trump v. US) accepted by the court is that there is no statute authorizing the appointment of a Special Prosecutor (with the powers exercised by Jack Smith) by the Attorney General, and therefore Smith cannot lawfully prosecute Trump (or anyone else). In other words "Mr. Smith, you don't even work here."
No doubt this will be appealed, but the chance of any significant action before the election is nil.
This was my main expectation after the assassination attempt -- that the 3 remaining cases were going to be pretty quickly abandoned or dismissed (whether on strong or dubious merit, doesn't even matter) and the 4th's sentencing would be even more minor. The supreme court had already been handing out rebukes, and the tide was beginning to turn after they got the big courtroom spectacle and it didn't change much. But it just seems like things are ratcheted up to a different level after saturday, like a splash of cold water, where trying to continue doggedly pursuing these ticky-tacky partisan trials now would just come across so badly and not at all as the behavior of "the adults in the room".
Maybe they'll go for an appeal, and get the georgia case going again with a different prosecutor or something, but I suspect a lot of people want to take any excuse to shut these all down now (can save face by just saying 'oh well, trump appointed that judge and those supreme court justices, what can we do').
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Quite the opinion. There's a lot in here for the small handful of folks who like the "Officer stuff" and actually care about the relevant law. The headline is about Constitutional interpretation, but the real main stage is detailed statutory interpretation. So while at first blush, it might seem like the overall topic is massive cert bait, there is significant leeway for the Eleventh Circuit to really hone it down into the best statutory arguments. At that point, it could look a lot less sexy for cert, so we'll have to sort of wait and see.
Of course, everyone else (who doesn't really care about "Officer stuff" qua "Officer stuff") will only care about the practical implications for Trump, which as you say, will almost certainly be delayed until after the election. At that point, there are a myriad of ways that it can go. If Trump wins the election, Trump has plenty of legal ammunition from Trump vs. US to simply fire Smith and moot the case, with the only possible sort of constraint being political in the form of Congressional threats to impeach him (...again, around and round we go...).
I don't know how quickly the Eleventh Circuit can turn the case around, but I wouldn't be surprised if they would want to just put it on ice until after Jan 20, because given the Mueller history and Trump vs. US, they can could easily bet that this political battle will be decided enough approximately immediately. If there's not enough political pressure, Trump will fire Smith on day one. If there is enough political pressure to make it past day one, then the Eleventh Circuit can start taking the case actually seriously on day two, with a completely different contextual setting.
Couldn't Trump just pardon himself for all federal cases and render them effectively moot? He'd still be on the hook in Georgia (if they ever pull themselves together, cuz imo that is actually the strongest legal arg they have) and would have to finish out the fight in NY, but none of the federal cases would matter anymore.
No idea. We're several years into everyone considering the hypo of a self-pardon, but I don't know that we're even a millimeter closer to having any real answers. Doing that would be a pretty controversial move with potentially serious long-term impacts. Vastly easier to just quote Trump vs. US and this decision and have Trump give a comically large "YOU'RE FIRED!"
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Once Trump becomes president again, he will be able to drive the narrative a lot more -- for instance by declassifying the docs in question, making it clear that he's being prosecuted for wacky souvenir collecting rather that selling H-bomb plans to Putin or whatever. (assuming of course that the documents are not of much true importance, which would be my default assumption)
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