Dahlia Lithwick in Slate:
The Supreme Court is on a collision course with itself, and it’s not clear that the justices even know it. We are now witnessing a five-car pileup of Trump–slash–Jan. 6 cases that will either be heard by the Supreme Court or land on their white marble steps in the coming weeks. The court has already agreed to hear the case of Joseph Fischer, the former Pennsylvania cop accused of taking part in the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol and assaulting police officers, to determine the scope of prosecutions for obstructing an official proceeding. The court’s already flirting with hearing a direct appeal by special counsel Jack Smith to speedily resolve Trump’s claims to absolute immunity for his actions in attempting to overturn the 2020 election. And a game-changer of a case came out of the Colorado Supreme Court on Tuesday that would knock the former president off of the Republican primary ballot in that state as a consequence of his involvement in the insurrection attempt on Jan. 6, which would also critically apply to the general election ballot next November. That ruling has to be settled by the high court in order to forestall, or affirm, other states’ efforts to do the same thing. Potential appeals of gag orders in criminal suits and doofy immunity claims in the E. Jean Carroll suit are all also winging their way to Chief Justice John Roberts’ workstation, and it’s not even 2024 yet.
More here.