A prominent left-wing legal pundit predicts that the Supreme Court will side with Donald Trump as he fights an appeal from prosecutor Jack Smith to revive criminal charges over classified documents.
In a stunning move in July, federal judge Aileen Cannon threw out the documents case after ruling that Smith was appointed improperly. Smith has brought the case to the 11th Circuit Appeals court.
Smith has argued that Cannon's decision contradicts long-standing precedent on appointing Special Counsels. Glenn Kirschner, a former federal prosecutor and frequent critic of Trump from the left, predicted in a recent podcast that the 11th Circuit will see things Smith's way.
But Kirschner warned that the Supreme Court's "radical" conservative wing might vindicate Trump in the end, like the court has done in some other high-profile cases.
"We know that all bets are off when it comes to what that radical right-wing six-justice block of the Supreme Court will do to try to continue to help Donald Trump," Kirschner said.
This summer, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that presidents are presumptively immune from prosecution, forcing Smith to recalibrate his indictment in a separate January 6th case and slowing down his already delayed prosecution further.
But the court's conservative bloc hasn't been as uniformly favorable to Trump as Kirschner described. Amy Coney Barrett, for example, sided with the liberal wing in a separate January 6th case that touched on charges that Trump faces.
In separate comments to Newsweek, Kirschner conceded that he is "pretty confident" the Supreme Court will overrule Judge Cannon, despite his apparent belief that conservative jurists are biased in Trump's favor.
He noted that other justices failed to join Justice Clarence Thomas when he cast doubt on Smith's authority in the immunity case.
"If other justices found it persuasive, they would have joined or they could've joined. Right?" Kirschner asked.
It isn't just conservative jurists who are casting a skeptical eye on legal efforts against Trump. Last week, a Democratic appeals court in New York called the $454 million verdict in Trump's civil fraud case "troubling," raising the possibility Trump could win a reversal in the future.
Still, many Democrats can't help but a see a corrupt pattern in Trump's court victories. Maybe the problem isn't with the courts, but the partisan prosecutors driving these cases.
