Welcome back, Deadline: Legal Newsletter readers. The Supreme Court didn't hold hearings this week but did reject Michael Cohen's bid for legal recourse for retaliation during Donald Trump's presidency. Meanwhile, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wants the justices to get him off swing state ballots as he seeks to help Trump, who said he'd fire special counsel Jack Smith "within two seconds" if he wins on Election Day — now 11 days away.
Cohen's appeal was denied along with a bunch of others on Monday's routine order list. That means Trump and his would-be civil co-defendants won't face Cohen's lawsuit for locking him up in response to speaking out against the then-president. As Trump signals a revenge-filled second term, the justices passed on the appeal despite scholars and former federal officials warning that blocking Cohen's suit "sends a clear signal to federal actors that critics of the government can be punished without repercussion for exercising their constitutional rights."
RFK Jr.'s rights are the subject of his emergency appeal to get off Wisconsin's ballot. The former independent candidate who suspended his campaign and endorsed Trump argues to the justices that it's unfair to keep him on (though he just asked them, unsuccessfully, to be on New York's ballot). We may learn next week whether the high court injects chaos into the battleground state race where early voting has already begun.
Trump is running to stay out of prison. That reality was heightened this week when the Republican presidential candidate told radio host Hugh Hewitt that he'd quickly can the special counsel who's prosecuting him in his two federal cases. The election interference and classified documents cases are still being litigated, with the former back in the trial court and the latter's dismissal being appealed by Smith. But the defendant could soon gain the power to make them both vanish.
The judge who tossed the documents case, Aileen Cannon, may be in line for a big promotion. ABC News reported that the Trump appointee who dismissed Trump's case (prompting Smith's appeal) could be our next attorney general. In addition to highlighting the stakes of a second Trump term, the news bolstered the pending recusal motion from alleged attempted Trump assassin Ryan Wesley Routh. Seeking to stop the Trump-friendly jurist from handling his case, Routh's lawyers wrote that, "were Mr. Trump to become President again, he would have authority to elevate Your Honor to a federal appellate court (including the U.S. Supreme Court) or to high-ranking positions in the Executive Branch."
Cannon's incentive could also strengthen the possibility of booting her from Trump's documents case. But first, we need to see how the federal appeals court rules on Smith's bid to reinstate it and whether and how the Supreme Court weighs in. That is, if the case still exists by the time it would get to that point. Once again, it all comes down to the impending election.
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