Well, my fellow Americans, it is up to us to hold Donald Trump accountable at the ballot box. We can’t count on the courts before Election Day.

This was supposed to be the opening week of Trump’s trial on January 6

,

the first ever of a former president to face criminal charges for his unprecedented attempt to overturn a US election and stay in power. A verdict could have been reached before November.

But there is no trial in Washington today, thanks to the Republican supermajority Supreme Court, one-third of whose members were appointed by Trump. The court’s decision last week to spend months considering Trump’s false claim of absolute immunity from criminal prosecution will likely delay the Jan. 6 trial so long that a verdict before Nov. 5 is all but impossible.

Pundits who suggest otherwise underestimate Trump’s talent for forcing delays and the willingness of some judges and justices to accommodate him.

Whether or not there is an election decision obviously matters. Polls consistently show that a significant number of voters would root for the presumptive Republican presidential nominee if he is a convicted felon, enough to deliver a close election to President Biden. (Remember, Trump has already been found liable for financial fraud and for assault and defamation in civil courts.)

Only the least significant of the four criminal trials Trump faces appears likely to start anytime soon. The New York state case alleges that

Hi

falsified corporate records to cover up hush money paid to adult film star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election, is scheduled for March 25.

Meanwhile, the election fraud case in Georgia is up in the air as the judge considers whether Fulton County Dist. Atty. Fani Willis can keep trying amid questions the Trump side has raised about her behavior.

And most of us long ago gave up hope that rookie federal judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, would do anything other than what she did: surrender to his delaying tactics in the Mar-a-Lago case, accusing him of taking over the top position. secret documents, lying about them and obstructing justice.

But it is the matter of January 6 that was most crucial: the primaries. Americans deserve to see whether a jury would find Trump guilty of conspiring to undermine the 2020 election

for

they will vote on his return to office in 2024.

Rarely has the saying that justice is delayed and justice denied seemed so appropriate. In this case the wrong one

want to be

finished for us, the voters.

We can spread the blame. Atty. General Merrick Garland has been so preoccupied with erasing the stain of politicization left by the Trump gang on the Justice Department (a thankless task, as evidenced by Republicans’ baseless whining about his weaponization) that he hesitated before he appointed special counsel Jack Smith to investigate Trump. Willis has indeed shown poor judgment. And Cannon appears to be auditioning for a promotion to a higher court by a re-elected Trump.

In any case, Smith proceeded with enthusiasm, along with the federal judge in the Jan. 6 case, Tanya Chutkan. But the Supreme Court all but thwarted their efforts.

The judges could have accepted Trump’s immunity claim in December. That month, Chutkan rejected Trump’s argument for what she called a lifetime release from prison, and when Trump appealed, Smith urged the Supreme Court to cut out the middleman (the DC appeals court) and move quickly to make a decision on the historical question. It refused.

Then, after the appeals court panel ruled unanimously against Trump, the justices could have accepted his widespread praise opinion as the last word. They didn’t.

Worse, in a case that will have more implications for the outcome of the presidential election than any other case since Bush v. Gore, one of the members of the Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas, has a clear conflict of interest, and he refuses to recuse himself. Thomas’ wife is involved in the pro-Trump machinations to overturn Biden’s victory.

A ruling from the judges could not come until the end of June. They are not expected to support Trump’s immunity claim, but they could send the case back to the appeals court, further delaying a trial. A judgment on Trump’s attempt to retain power is now much more unlikely before the election, conservative former appeals court Judge J. Michael Luttig told MSNBC.

That is why the voters’ judgment is all the more critical. As Liz Cheney often says: Trump should not be allowed anywhere near the Oval Office. If re-elected, he could drop federal cases against him, and he pledged on Jan. 6 to pardon those already convicted for their actions.

Dan Pfeiffer, the former Obama White House adviser, told readers of his newsletter Thursday that Democrats should make a chicken salad out of these chickens. Call up the already unpopular Supreme Court, he argued, and hammer home the argument that Donald Trump is in power. for president for one reason and one reason only to avoid liability for crimes he committed.

We need to stop looking at calendars and counting with our fingers when Trump can be convicted in a courtroom. We waited for the jury.

And then, once Trump is defeated

again

, the trials can play out. And those other juries can finish the job of holding Citizen Trump accountable.

@jackiekcalmes