WASHINGTON - The US Supreme Court declined on Saturday to immediately hear for­mer president Donald Trump’s claim that he is immune from pros­ecution, potentially delaying his 2020 elec­tion interference trial. Special Counsel Jack Smith had asked the nation’s highest court to take up the immu­nity case on an expe­dited basis, bypassing the federal court of appeals. The Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, including three justices nominated by Trump, denied the request in a one-line order that did not provide any reason for the decision. 

The 77-year-old Trump, the frontrun­ner for the 2024 Re­publican presidential nomination, is currently scheduled to go on trial on March 4, 2024 on charges of conspiring to overturn the November 2020 election won by Democrat Joe Biden. 

Trump’s lawyers have repeatedly sought to delay the trial until af­ter next year’s election, including with the claim that a former president enjoys “absolute im­munity” and cannot be prosecuted for actions he took while in the White House. US Dis­trict Judge Tanya Chut­kan, who is to preside over Trump’s March trial, rejected the immu­nity claim on December 1, saying a former presi­dent does not have a “lifelong ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ pass.” 

“Defendant’s four-year service as Com­mander in Chief did not bestow on him the divine right of kings to evade the criminal ac­countability that gov­erns his fellow citizens,” she added. Trump’s lawyers appealed Chut­kan’s decision to the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit and Smith, the special coun­sel, asked the Supreme Court to step in and hear the case itself. 

“This case presents a fundamental ques­tion at the heart of our democracy: whether a former President is ab­solutely immune from federal prosecution for crimes committed while in office,” Smith said in a filing to the Supreme Court. “It is of para­mount public impor­tance that respondent’s claims of immunity be resolved as expeditious­ly as possible -- and, if respondent is not im­mune, that he receive a fair and speedy trial on these charges,” he said. 

With the Supreme Court’s rejection of Smith’s request, the appeals court will now first hear the immunity case. Carl Tobias, a law professor at the Univer­sity of Richmond, said this could make it dif­ficult to maintain the March trial date.