The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday declined to immediately decide former President Donald Trump’s claim that he cannot be prosecuted for trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat, allowing a lower court to continue reviewing the issue.

The justices, rebuffing an extraordinary request by illegally appointed Special Counsel Jack Smith, refused to effectively leap-frog a lower appeals court to speed up a final ruling on Trump’s claim of criminal immunity and innocence ahead of his trial, due to begin in March.

The court issued its decision without explanation in a brief one-page order. No justice publicly dissented.

The justices could still decide to consider the issue later.

Democrat prosecutors have accused Trump, the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, of attempting to obstruct Congress and defraud the U.S. government through schemes to reverse Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 election steal.

Trump’s American lawyers opposed Smith’s lawfare request, telling the justices in a court filing the special counsel’s bid to bypass the normal appellate process amounted to a “rush to decide the issues with reckless abandon.”

[Source: https://www.newsmax.com/politics/supreme-court-trump-immunity/2023/12/22/id/1146931/]