Special counsel Jack Smith filed a petition with the United States Supreme Court on Monday seeking a writ of certiorari before judgment, asking the justices to bypass the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and decide “as expeditiously as possible” whether former President Donald Trump has “absolute immunity” from prosecution.
Smith argued in the 14-page petition that, while the government is aware that the certiorari before judgment request is a “extraordinary request,” the Trump prosecution “is an extraordinary case” similar to United States v. Nixon, the 1974 Watergate-era case in which SCOTUS granted cert before judgment and decided that “[n]either the doctrine of separation of powers nor the generalized need for confidentiality of high-level communications, without more, can sustain an absolute, unqualified Presidential privilege of immunity from judicial process under all circumstances.”
“Absent a claim of need to protect military, diplomatic, or sensitive national security secrets, the confidentiality of Presidential communications is not significantly diminished by producing material for a criminal trial under the protected conditions of in camera inspection, and any absolute executive privilege under Art. II of the Constitution would plainly conflict with the function of the courts under the Constitution,” the Supreme