The Colorado ballot decision might foreshadow something similar in the Trump immunity claim.

The idiocy of the Colorado ruling forced the hand of the USSC. Could the same principle apply to Jack Smith?

Let's be clear. Had Colorado not done what they had done, the USSC would have never been forced to get involved with clarifying the 14th amendment. Similarly, had Jack Smith not charged Trump with issues that go to things Trump did as President (legal things that Smith suggests are illegal due to intent) the USSC would not be grappling with the Presidential immunity case they are going to hear in April.

All nine Justices came together to tell Colorado (and other states) that they did not have the authority to act on the ludicrous 14th amendment claims that Trump should be disqualified from holding office and therefor be taken off the ballot. The court ruled that the 14th amendment is is a Federal, not State issue and needs to be handled in some consistent 50 state fashion.

But there was an underlying disagreement. Five of the Justices (enough to form a majority opinion) wrote separately that the only manner in which the 14th amendment can be enforced is by an act of congress. The ruling would require Congress to actually write a law to enforce it or there was some suggestion that they could disqualify someone with a 2/3 vote from both Chambers. Either way, while the 9-0 ruling put the idea of individual states disqualifying a candidate to rest, the 5-0 majority went even farther and concluded that disqualification based on the 14th amendment would take an act of Congress to codify the means to remove. This eliminates any other means for Trump to be disqualified by some majority vote or executive action or another judicial ruling.

I believe this ultimately might be the conservative justices using legal nuance to accomplish the larger issue at play. Which, of course, is the simple truth that Trump did not engage in an insurrection and should not be disqualified. The conservatives did not want to issue that particular ruling, but in every other way but the actual statement, they provided the legal groundwork for that reality. He is going be on the ballot and he will not be disqualified. If he wins and Democrats want to prevent him from becoming President, they must figure out how to comply with the idea that it takes a congressional action that creates a new law or provides for a 2/3 majority in both chambers.

At the end of the day, the stupidity of the Colorado ruling forced the hand here. The makeshift bench trial with no defense put forward is a ridiculous manner for a court to decide someone is guilty of something as serious as what is suggested in the 14th Amendment.

I am wondering out loud if the stupidity of Jack Smith filing charges against a former President for doing perfectly legal Presidential things that Smith suggests are corrupt in nature and therefore become a crime. There are a lot of issues with the concept that challenging an election and holding rallies constitutes some form of fraud against the Government. There are also plenty of issues with the idea of someone being found responsible for other people's actions based on the idea that this someone did not do "enough" to try to prevent it. After all the Capital Complex security is not the responsibility of the President, the protesters had a legal permit to protest where they were, and Trump had a legal right to his first amendment speech in saying that the election was rigged and that the results should not have been trusted.

Is there an opening here for at least the five or six conservative member of the court to suggest that the President does not have immunity from being charged with crimes involving illegal action, but that the President would have immunity from being charges with crimes that involve legal actions that a prosecutor might deem to be corrupt in intent. These are really two different issues. Moreover, there is at least some unwritten rules out there which at one time protected Bill Clinton when he was accused of selling pardons at the end of his term. The Bush AG was Bill Barr and Barr suggested that a President should (or could) not be charged with a crime involving his Presidential authority of providing pardons, because it would be one administration declaring the actions of the previous administration to be corrupt in intent to establish a crime. Barr suggested this was well outside the boundaries of how you treat Presidents.

Obviously these are "unwritten rules" but they make sense. The question is whether the court is willing to make a common sense "unwritten rule" into a legal mandate. Under general circumstances I would argue no. But Jack Smith charging a President and candidate for President for obvious political purposes over legal actions that he deems corrupt would be exactly the sort of action that might force the hand of the court, just as Colorado did.