Liz Cheney urges Supreme Court to act quickly on Trump immunity

Former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) on Wednesday called on the Supreme Court to “promptly” decide on former President Trump’s criminal immunity claims.

Cheney, in a post on X, the social media platform formerly called Twitter, argued voters should be able to hear the evidence in the Department of Justice’s case against Trump concerning his efforts to overturn his 2020 reelection loss before November’s election.

“Delaying the January 6 trial suppresses critical evidence that Americans deserve to hear,” Cheney wrote. “Donald Trump attempted to overturn an election and seize power. Our justice system must be able to bring him to trial before the next election. SCOTUS should decide this case promptly.”

The Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to take up the issue of whether Trump is immune from charges stemming from his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss. Trump’s legal team is arguing the former president’s actions leading up to and surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection are protected from criminal prosecution under presidential immunity.

The court’s decision to consider the matter will likely delay the start of the trial until the summer or later, inching close to November’s general election.

Cheney served as vice chair of the House select committee investigating Jan. 6 and emerged as one of the most outspoken GOP critics of the former president.

She has pinned the blame on Trump for inciting the riots on Jan. 6 and eventually lost her seat in the lower chamber after three terms to a Trump-backed challenger, Rep. Harriet Hageman, during the 2022 primaries in Wyoming.

She has remained a vocal critic of both Trump and some of his allies since leaving the House and expressed many of those concerns in her recent memoir, titled “Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning.”

The Hill reached out to Trump’s campaign for comment.

Trump celebrated the Supreme Court’s decision to hear his immunity case and thanked the high court for the decision. The former president had previously urged the Supreme Court to delay the trial, while special counsel Jack Smith asked the Supreme Court to reject Trump’s request.

Other Republicans, including Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas), also celebrated the decision. Cruz said he hopes the Supreme Court “puts a stop” to what he called an “abuse of power” against Trump.

“I’m glad the Supreme Court is taking the case. I have to say what we’ve seen in the past year — about the targeting from the left, the targeting from Democrat prosecutors of Donald Trump — has been an enormous abuse of power,” Cruz said Wednesday on NewsNation’s “Elizabeth Vargas Reports.” 

NewsNation is owned by Nexstar Media Group, which also owns The Hill.

Trump faces four felony counts in the federal case alleging he was involved in a conspiracy to defraud the U.S. and that he stood at the center of a campaign to block the certification of votes on Jan. 6.

The Supreme Court’s order will keep the proceedings for the case on pause for now, handing Smith a blow following his past efforts to keep the case’s time frame on track.