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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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