The Daily Fuckup

Donald Trump picked up a procedural win on December 22, 2023, when the Supreme Court declined to immediately intervene in the dispute over whether he can be prosecuted for his role in the effort to overturn the 2020 election. The decision did not resolve the core immunity question in his favor, and it did not end the federal election-subversion case brought by special counsel Jack Smith. What it did do was deny Smith’s request to short-circuit the normal appellate path and send the issue straight to the justices on an emergency timetable. Instead, the matter was left for the D.C. Circuit to handle first, with judges expected to examine the question on an expedited basis. That may sound like a technical distinction, but in a case built around deadlines, calendar pressure, and a looming campaign, the timing is the substance. Smith wanted to preserve the March 4 trial date, while Trump’s lawyers have been working from the opposite premise: if the case can be slowed, it can be reshaped, and if it can be reshaped long enough, it may never arrive in the form prosecutors want.

For Trump, delay has never been just delay. It is a tactic, a message, and in many ways a political brand. He has repeatedly turned legal process into a public performance, portraying each new filing, hearing, or ruling as further proof that he is being unfairly singled out by institutions he has spent years attacking. The immunity fight fits that pattern neatly. A quick ruling against him would have forced a sharper confrontation with the allegations themselves, which center on his efforts to remain in power after losing the 2020 election. A slower path, by contrast, gives his team more opportunities to argue over procedure, more chances to stress the burdens of an election-year prosecution, and more time to keep the case from colliding directly with his campaign schedule. That is why even a non-decision can function like a victory in Trump’s world. He did not win a legal ruling on the merits, but he avoided the immediate shortcut prosecutors wanted, which is enough to let him claim momentum. The practical effect is breathing room, and breathing room is one of the few resources he can still convert directly into political advantage.

At the same time, the Supreme Court’s refusal to jump ahead of the appeals court was not the same as giving Trump a favorable signal on the underlying constitutional claim. The justices simply declined to bless his request for emergency treatment, leaving the lower court process intact. That matters because it suggests the Court was not inclined to treat a former president, now also a current candidate, as entitled to a special procedural lane simply because the calendar is inconvenient for him. It also means the case remains live and active, with the possibility of a substantive ruling still ahead. Smith can still argue that the appeal should move quickly enough to keep the trial on track, but an expedited appellate process is still a process, and process takes time. The longer the case moves through the courts, the more the allegations remain in public view and the more difficult it becomes to separate the legal issues from the political stakes. Trump may prefer to frame delay as vindication, but the reality is more awkward: the system is not stopping, only slowing down. That slower pace may help him for the moment, yet it also keeps the case alive long enough to remain a recurring source of risk.

The politics of that delay are obvious, and both sides understand them. Prosecutors have every incentive to argue that the former president is trying to run out the clock, using appeals and immunity claims to push any trial closer to the election or beyond it entirely. Trump and his allies, meanwhile, are likely to present the Supreme Court’s decision as evidence that even the nation’s highest court is not eager to rush a politically explosive case. Neither framing is complete. The prosecution still has a substantial case to make about Trump’s actions after the 2020 vote, and the legal question of presidential immunity in a criminal context is serious enough that courts are unlikely to treat it casually. But it is equally true that the defendant’s incentives are aligned with delay, because time itself can be a defense when the broader aim is to survive long enough to change the conditions around the case. Every week without a trial date increases the likelihood that the election campaign will continue to shape the legal environment. Every procedural detour gives Trump another chance to argue that voters, not judges, should determine his future. That argument may resonate politically, but it does not answer the criminal charges hanging over him. On December 22, he did not get exoneration, and he did not get a final legal shield. He got a pause, which in this case is still a meaningful prize, even if it is only a temporary one.