Smerconish in philadelphia, the final day of voting is four weeks from tuesday. And even without my showing you the latest polling, you already know the State Of Play while Vice President Kamala Harris has a slight edge over former President Trump at a popular vote the seven widely recognized Battleground States are within the margin of error this after a long strange trip in which nothing has moved the nation from an intractable divide when it began, there was a lot of talk about a third Party Factor but they couldnt find a ticket to meet the moment. And the fresher face from florida never got the traction that some had anticipated so trump cruised to the nomination without ever having to debate his opponents and was actually bolstered by four indictments and suffered know setback among republicans, even after being convicted. The general election field, then took shape. Age was immediately a factor. The only thing these candidates could agree on was to debate at the start of summer a
The first debate in just two weeks. Then the calendar thereafter littered with debates and caucuses, primaries and convention. Does that mean that trump should not be tried before the election . No. The cases should proceed as they would were the candidate not a president ial candidate. They should not be postponed because of the election, in which he has chosen to run. But nor should they be expedited. I have noted here before that theres a long and Noble Tra Jigs at doj of not wanting to act in a way that might be perceived as political. Five recent attorneys general, republicans ask democrats, have all signed the same memo affirm lg the importance of keeping politics out of criminal charges. A republican in 2008, eric holder in 2012 and Loretta Lynch in 2016, bill barr in 2020 and mek garland just last year, they have all used the same language, include ing this paragr quote, simply put, politics must play no role in the decisions the federal investigators or prosecutors regarding a
hu. if you know you know. thank you for jojoining me t to. i i ll see youou next satuturda 8:00 a.m. smerconish is up next. there s an election coming, but you ll never hear jack smith say so. the supreme court is about to have more influence on the outcome of a presidential election than at any time since is the 2000 decision in bush verv. gore. jack smith asked the court to bypass the appellate level and make a decision about whether donald trump is entitled to immunity. and separately, this week they agreed to hear a challenge to a law used to prosecute hundreds of january 6th defendants for obstructing or impeding an official proceedingsing, which could impact smith s prosecution against trump on those charges. here s what s interesting to me. nowhere in the government s petition is there any specific reference to the 2024 presidential election, but that s clear ly what is driving smith s request. in making his case, here s what he told the court. quote, this case prese
is expected to spend the night on monday in anticipation of his tuesday arraignment. it goes something like this. i want you to assume that the 2020 election concludes with biden beating trump. in fact, in my hypothetical biden beats trump by the exact same numbers that biden did be trump. in the electoral college is 306 to 2 32 in the popular vote percentage. it s still 51.3 to 46.9, meaning joe biden garnered 81 million votes and donald trump 74 million only in my alternate universe. trump accepts defeat. there s no perfect call to brad raffensperger. john eastman. he never gets near the oval office . mike pence is not leaned on. no alternative slates of electors are ever assembled. january, 6th. it passes like any other day. there s no rally. there s no storming of the capital. and on january 20 donald and melania trump. they attend the biden harris inauguration. there, there. he s not happy about it. he s grumpy. but he s physically there. and as a matter of fact, when th
stormy daniels that s believed to be a precursor to an indictment. they re required by law to be notified and invited to appear before a grand jury. if charged, trump would be the first former president to be indicted, but would it slow his current presidential quest? i say not a chance, at least not based on this case alone. any charges here would stem from the $130,000 in payments made to daniels during the 2016 campaign. apparently she had been ready to share her story of an affair with trump, but the publisher was a trump friend, who instead helped broker a deal with michael cohen, in which she was paid for silence. i ve thought it was the weakest of the trump investigations which generally fall into four buckets. first, the events of january 6th. second, the mishandling of government documents. third, the fulton county da investigation, including the phone call to brad raffensperger. fourth, this, the stormy daniels hush money. merrick garland appointed jack smith to loo