When the Supreme Court said it’s important to move quickly in key presidential cases like Trump’s immunity claim

• The claim arises from his federal charges of attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election results, but also may apply to the charges he faces over hoarding classified documents after leaving office.
• No Supreme Court has decided this question, nor has any of its rulings said definitively what counts as an official act and what does not.
• But to the justices, and to me as a scholar of American politics and law, perhaps no commentator is as persuasive as the Supreme Court itself – in particular, in a ruling from 50 years ago.

A slowly unfolding inquiry

• It was sparked by a burglary of Democratic Party headquarters in Washington’s Watergate Complex in May 1972 and mounting evidence that Nixon had orchestrated a cover-up.
• In the summer of 1973, the highly publicized Senate hearings on Watergate publicly revealed the existence of tape recordings of Oval Office conversations.

A rapid series of court decisions

• On May 24, 1974, Jaworski filed a request for certiorari before judgment, a rarely used legal mechanism asking the Supreme Court to get involved before the appeals court heard the case.
• On May 31, six justices, including two Nixon appointees, granted Jaworski’s request and set oral arguments for July 8.
• One justice, William Rehnquist, recused himself because he had worked in Nixon’s Justice Department before being appointed to the court.
• One of its key pieces of evidence was one of the recordings the Supreme Court had ordered released.
• The Supreme Court had moved quickly, accepting the case at the earliest point it could have.

Trump’s delays

• Circuit Court of Appeals in December 2023, special counsel Jack Smith asked the Supreme Court to grant certiorari before judgment.
• During John Roberts’ time as chief justice, the Supreme Court has frequently agreed with those requests.
• That is already more time than had elapsed between the Supreme Court accepting and deciding the case in 1974.

The importance of speed

• I am not the only one who believes the Trump case is of similar – if not greater – importance to democracy.
• It’s not yet clear how soon the Roberts court will rule, but in 1974, the justices appreciated “the public importance of the issues presented and the need for their prompt resolution”.

Donald Nieman has received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Council of Learned Societies.