Yeah, It's Still The Chicago Seven Strategy

All I can conclude is some very serious lizard people have told Jack Smith that Trump's DC trial must start on March 4, or else. Alan Dershowitz hasn't commented on Smith's move to take Trump's appeal based on presidential immunity directly to the Supreme Court, but Dershowitz has already noted that Trump's strategy is essentially the same as the Chicago Seven defense: force the judge and prosecutors into errors the defense can get reversed on appeal.

The stakes are high:

The outcome of this fight may determine whether Trump faces any of his four pending criminal trials in 2024. His other three remain in flux or unscheduled. And if the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court consider the former president’s immunity claims on their typical timelines, that may force Chutkan to slow down her own.

While lawyers from special counsel Jack Smith’s team pleaded with Chutkan not to alter the March 4 date, they appeared to concede that Trump’s defense won’t be obliged to respond to most legal issues in the case while his appeal claiming presidential immunity is pending at the D.C. Circuit.

Trump has argued that the entire case must be halted while his immunity appeal is pending because a ruling in his favor would shut down the prosecution. His lawyers also say he shouldn’t be subject to the “burdens of litigation” while his appeal is live.

The problem is that Joe Biden hasn't been adjusting his campaign strategy as the polls gradually turn against him. Instead, he remains focused on a strategy from last year or earlier, to put Trump on trial through the primary and general campaigns and present Joe as the less-bad alternative. But this isn't aging well:

The media are full of stories that cite Democratic Party sources and contributors suggesting that the 81-year-old president, who has shown signs of age-related mental impairment in recent years, should drop out of the running. The complaints have become increasingly urgent as Biden’s presidential favorability readings have plunged sharply.

Meanwhile, Trump faces an unprecedented legal assault, with four separate indictments covering 91 allegations of criminal behavior on his part. In normal times, that would be a political disaster.

. . . . [Based on a recent poll] Among all voters, 60% agreed that the unprecedented legal charges against Trump were politically driven by the Democratic Party, while 31% disagreed.

What’s surprising isn’t that majorities of Republicans (81% “agree,” 13% “disagree”) and independents (53% “agree,” 35% “disagree”) see eye-to-eye, but that a plurality of Democrats (49% “agree,” 44% “disagree”) also believe the prosecutions are politically motivated.

The Trump campaign jumped on the news of Smith's motion:

Smith asked the high court to quickly take up the issue of whether Trump can be prosecuted for trying to overturn the 2020 election, a move that attempted to bypass the appeals court. Smith beseeched SCOTUS that Trump's "trial proceed as promptly as possible if his claim of immunity is rejected."

The Supreme Court agreed to take up Smith's petition, directing Trump's team to submit a response by Dec. 20. The court made clear its "response does not mean the court will take up the case — only that it will consider the request in an expedited fashion."

"Crooked Joe Biden's henchman, Deranged Jack Smith, is so obsessed with interfering in the 2024 Presidential Election with the goal of preventing President Trump from retaking the Oval Office, as the President is poised to do, that Smith is willing to try for a Hail Mary by racing to the Supreme Court and attempting to bypass the appellate process," a spokesperson for Trump's campaign said in a statement prior to SCOTUS' answer.

I suspect the Trump defense strtagy had something like this in mind from the start -- file an appeal that could result in a delay of the DC trial past March 4, which would threaten to move the whole trial timing away from the election season. Someone -- and I think it was someone who gives Jack Smith de facto orders -- decided this was unacceptable, even though the Biden reelection strategy based on putting Trump in prison by November has alrweady been overtaken by events. Nevertheless, the lizard people are in full panic mode.

The Trump defense has been fully aware that putting Smith into appellate territory puts Smith at a major disadvatage:

Special counsel Jack Smith, who has brought federal charges against former President Donald Trump, is an “overzealous” prosecutor who relies on ethically dubious tactics, including media leaks and enticing witnesses, say those who have been caught in his snare.

Other reviews of his record come to conclusions like this one:

Special Counsel Jack Smith, tapped by Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate former President Donald Trump for allegedly wrongfully maintaining classified documents in his residence – a fairly common practice other U.S. Attorneys General have refused to prosecute – has a troubling record of failed, botched, and/or suspect prosecutions against prominent public figures.

This record suggests the Trump team deliberately forced a bad choice on Smith -- either allow an appeal that would delay the trial, unacceptable to the lizard people, or attempt to get a quick ruling in his favor from the Supreme Court, which, given his appellate track record, is itself an iffy proposition. The Trump team's strategy all along has been to get both the judge and prosecutor rattled and force them into panic-driven decisions, and it looks like it's working.