In Trump’s unfolding legal drama, ‘the campaign will be conducted in a courtroom’

The Supreme Court’s decision not to immediately consider whether Donald Trump is immune from prosecution for his effort to subvert the 2020 election may prove to be a short-term legal victory.

But its implications for the 2024 presidential contest could be sweeping.

The decision capped an extraordinary 48 hours that underscored just how the courts may be more pivotal to the campaign than debates and diners, and how the Justices, who find themselves with a jammed docket full of Trump-related cases, seem poised to affect the trajectory of the campaign as much as the candidates themselves.

“The campaign will be conducted in a courtroom, essentially,” said Dick Wadhams, a former Colorado Republican Party chair and longtime party strategist. “And that’s worked out well for [Trump] for the past year. They probably are banking on that to continue.”

Already this week, both Trump and the Colorado Republican Party have said they would appeal to the Supreme Court the state high court’s bombshell decision disqualifying Trump from the ballot because he incited an insurrection on Jan. 6.

In Michigan, a bombshell report revealed both Trump and Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel privately offered to provide legal defense to two GOP canvassers in exchange for not certifying the state’s 2020 presidential vote. That could prove to be a boon to special prosecutor Jack Smith as he seeks to show Trump repeatedly leaned on state officials to overturn the results despite lacking evidence of widespread fraud. The new evidence could also boost Michigan’s Democratic attorney general, Dana Nessel, as she investigates Trump’s efforts to overturn the state’s election results, with some legal commentators suggesting it could be a crime