Donald Trump’s immunity claim

In the first case, the court’s position on the 14th Amendment question might be that “we are going to leave it up to the voters as to who may appear on a federal election ballot and take office. That decision is not the purview of the court or Congress, but that of the voters. We don’t want to arrogate their rightful electoral power of decision.”

Meanwhile, should the court intervene in the Trump immunity case and bog it down in procedure for months, then the court would have taken the power of logically deciding whom to elect president out of the hands of voters by denying them the critical information needed to choose. Procedure could easily delay the trial regarding Jan. 6, 2021, so far out that it must be postponed until after the election. Mr. Trump might win the election and cancel the process. The fault would lie with the folks in the black robes on Capitol Hill.

So I am watching to see whether the court engineers its decisions to let Mr. Trump have it both ways.

Daniel Lounberg, Arlington

The Supreme Court will shortly demonstrate the true character of the justices and, by extension, the court. On Thursday, it heard former president Donald Trump’s ballot disqualification case and almost certainly will rule, perhaps unanimously, that Colorado cannot exclude Trump from the ballot. Now the true test comes. The justices soon will decide whether to accept Mr. Trump’s appeal of the ironclad decision that former presidents do not have absolute immunity and whether to stay the criminal case. How the justices act on these issues will demonstrate whether they are impartial jurists acting with integrity or political hacks dressed in black robes.

The court should accept this appeal and, speaking as the highest court in the land, affirm that Mr. Trump does not have absolute immunity. The critical question is whether the justices will act expeditiously, enabling Mr. Trump to be put on trial in the federal cases before the November election. Or will the conservative justices assist Mr. Trump’s campaign by delaying issuing a decision, effectively putting off the federal trials until after the election and killing the cases in the event Mr. Trump wins.

Acting expeditiously will restore some of the court’s lost credibility. Helping Mr. Trump through delay will be the last nail in the coffin of the court’s integrity.

David Schlitz, Washington