How the Supreme Court’s decision on Trump’s immunity could turn on a single question

CNN —

The Supreme Court will likely produce thousands of words when it decides this year whether former President Donald Trump may claim immunity from special counsel Jack Smith’s election subversion charges.

But for now, court watchers are stuck parsing the first 29.

That’s how many words the court used to lay out the “question presented” in Trump’s immunity appeal – the question that the nine justices will focus on when they meet in April to hear arguments and then sit down to craft an opinion that will either greenlight Smith’s prosecution of the former president or shut it down.

Although the question appeared straightforward, some experts saw worrying signs for Trump below the surface in how the wording seemed to reject his most aggressive claims. But the tea leaves presented a mixed picture for prosecutors as well. They suggest the possibility of an outcome that will require even more of a delay and additional legal wrangling before the case can go to trial, even if Trump’s claims of absolute immunity are rejected by the justices.

The framing of the case was “extremely carefully crafted,” said Norm Eisen, who served as White House ethics czar during the Obama administration and is a CNN legal analyst. And, he said, it “signals the only reasonable outcome here, which is to reject presidential immunity.”

More than two weeks after Trump requested that the Supreme Court block a lower court ruling against him, the justices announced Wednesday they would decide the dispute. In a terse, one-page order, the court expedited review and said it would hear arguments during the week of April 22.

It also defined the question it intends to answer.

“Whether and if so to what extent does a former president enjoy