Dina’s Docket: Weekly Trump Recap (3/8/24)
Friday, March 8, 2024
Another week, another round of updates in the many ongoing Trump trials. (The nonpartisan nonprofit JUST SECURITY has a fabulous master calendar of key dates in Trump’s trials.)
On Monday, the Supreme Court ruled that Trump could remain on the ballot in Colorado — and all other states — essentially saying that states alone cannot decide who is disqualified for insurrection under the Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. They take it one step further and say that actually only Congress can decide who is disqualified and that Congress must enact rules in order for that to happen.
Is Congress ever going to do that? We'll see. But this decision came down one day before Super Tuesday showing that the Supreme Court, when necessary, can actually rule in a timely manner — unlike the immunity case which is going to prolong the issue of Trump's criminal cases before the election. The liberal justices all agreed on the fact that states cannot make the determination, but they didn't agree with the majority deciding that only Congress can make that determination.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett essentially agreed with the liberals but didn’t like how they wrote their opinion; in her separate opinion, she wrote: “This is not the time to amplify disagreement with stridency.” The irony is that she actually created more drama with this separate opinion because the language in the liberal justices opinion wasn't that unusual. And we may not have realized the stridency that was apparently evident in the justices deciding on this issue if Justice Coney Barrett hadn’t highlighted in her opinion.
Finally, Alina Habba seemed to tell the judge that Donald Trump doesn't even have the $83.3 million to put up in order to appeal his case, and asked the judge for more time. Soon after, Trump after posted a $91 million bond which will pause enforcement of his $83.3 million jury award in his E Jean Carroll defamation case pending his appeal.
Have questions about what’s going on in Trump’s trials? Email me at press@askdinadoll.com or drop a comment below. Make sure to follow me on social media where I post recap videos every Friday along with a ton of other legal news analysis: @askdinadoll
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