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Welcome back, Deadline: Legal Newsletter readers. Courts were closed for MLK Day on Monday, but the short week was action-packed in the legal world of Donald Trump and the Supreme Court he helped build.
We’re still waiting for an appellate ruling on Trump’s far-flung immunity claim in his federal election interference case. The three-judge D.C. Circuit panel heard arguments Jan. 9 and its decision could come any day, likely followed by further appeal from whichever side loses. The former president is apparently feeling the weight of his probable impending loss, having fired off a characteristically unhinged social media rant pushing for “total” immunity, which my MSNBC colleague Zeeshan Aleem says “envisions the presidency as autocracy.”
At the trial level, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan rejected Trump’s similarly far-reaching bid to hold special counsel Jack Smith in contempt. The former president’s legal team had complained about the prosecution’s mundane moves of filing a brief on the district court docket and providing discovery evidence to the defense while the immunity appeal is pending. But Chutkan’s ruling, which noted that the government hadn’t clearly violated any court order, is the latest reminder that the trial is increasingly unlikely to go forward as scheduled in early March — how far it’s pushed back due to the immunity appeal remains to be seen.
A Trump trial that actually went forward this week is going poorly for him. My MSNBC colleague Katie Phang explains that both Trump lawyer Alina Habba and her client are having a tough time in the latest E. Jean Carroll defamation trial. Habba appears to have some difficulty with, among other things, the basics of trial practice, as she attempts to mitigate the damages Trump will owe this latest round in Manhattan federal court. The former president already lost a civil trial there against Carroll last year, when he was found liable for defaming and sexually abusing her. Expect this jury to give an expensive answer to the question Carroll’s lawyer posed, regarding the self-professed billionaire defendant: How much will it cost to make him stop?
At the Supreme Court, the justices heard arguments over the next decades-old precedent that could be overturned by the GOP-appointed majority. It’s about something called Chevron deference, a topic that isn’t as widely known as abortion and guns but is important just the same. The 1984 precedent tells judges to defer to administrative agency expertise on environmental regulations and other crucial facets of our lives. But now that Republicans have amassed more judicial power, they want to be the ones wielding that authority, instead of those agency experts. As Justice Elena Kagan incredulously put it Wednesday to a lawyer arguing against Chevron: “You want the courts to decide that?” The forthcoming ruling, expected by summer, will tell us what the Roberts Court wants.
The justices also fielded Trump’s brief in his ballot eligibility case. The filing Thursday largely regurgitated arguments over why he should be allowed to hold office again despite the Jan. 6 insurrection, including the absurd claim that he can’t be disqualified because he technically never swore to “support” the Constitution in the first place. Oral argument on the 14th Amendment issue is set for Feb. 8.