Supreme Court may ‘split hairs’, ‘kick as late as possible’ Trump immunity decision: legal analyst

Joining me now, MSNBC legal analyst Christy Greenberg. She's a former federal prosecutor and former deputy head of the criminal division at the SDN Y. She was in the courtroom for the trial and really graced us with her understanding of what happened almost every weekend. But Christie, Trump is now fighting to terminate the gag order before the 1st presidential debate on June 27th. Overall, has the judge bent over backwards in a sense to try to accommodate Trump during the trial? I mean, would he change the calendar because Trump finds the timing inconvenient? I I don't think he will change the calendar for the for the sentencing, if that's what if that's what you're asking. I, I don't, I think that July 11th date is, is pretty walked in. Yeah. OK. So Trump completed that virtual meeting with the probation officer that happened Monday. It happened in about 30 minutes or so. And that special accommodation that drew the attention of New York City's public defenders because he did it at Mar A Lago. He wasn't in downtown Manhattan doing that. Given Trump's pension for publicity, for marketing, for spin, why would details of his probation interview not be reported in the press? Do you have any sense of how it went? Well, we know that it was brief. It was I think under 30 minutes. So can take a while, but they also take a while because a lot of defendants in criminal cases have lengthy criminal histories to talk about lengthy, you know, issues in terms of mental health or, you know, education, employment that they have to go through. And a lot of that with Donald Trump is, you know, in terms of his employment, his educational background, his family, a lot of that's already pretty well known. So and he doesn't have any criminal history. So I expect maybe that is why it would have been order then. Then we would sometimes see it in terms of the fact that it occurred at Mar a Lago, You know, there at least I don't know that there's anything that's improper about that. If he had gone to the probation office, there are a lot of other criminal defendants in cases that the probation office. It would have been quite a headache, I think for Secret Service and for law enforcement, I think generally to arrange that visit there. So I don't think the fact that there was a special accommodation made in this case is is so surprising. Yeah, got it. Well, the fact is almost everything about this case is incredibly unprecedented. So there you go. This can join that ranking. The RNC, as you know, is preparing for a convention that Trump might not attend if he gets a home confinement sentence. The sentencing date falls between the first debate and the RNC convention. Can the judge avoid his sentence being influenced by politics? So I would, if I had to predict here, I predict that Donald Trump will be attending the RNC. I actually believe that Judge Marshawn will impose a jail sentence here. And whether or not that's some form of home confinement is unclear. But I do think he will impose a jail sentence. But I also believe that that sentence will be stayed, meaning put on hold while Donald Trump pursues his appeal. And as we know in these cases, the appeals can take a long, We're not not even just talking months, it could be years, right? So even that, you know, and even if a jail sentence was not stayed pending appeal, typically in a case like this where you have white collar defendants that have been out on release while they've been, well, they've had their trial, typically there's a surrender date that's given before they would go to jail and that's a few weeks out to allow them to get their affairs in order. So given the dates here of the RNC, July 15th through 18th, I don't see any way that he's not attending that convention. But case in point to what you were saying, I mean, Steve Bannon was convicted, sentenced two years ago, and he has yet to report to prison. He will do that, I believe, July 1st. So let's talk about the Supreme Court. It did not put out its ruling on Trump's immunity claims yesterday. But Trump critic George Conway says even if the court delays the ruling until the end of this month, Trump's January 6th DC trial could start right before the election. What do you, Chris, do you think of that timeline? Do you agree with it? And what do you think the reason is for the SCOTUS holdup? Why did it not come down on Thursday as many thought it might? I didn't think it was going to come down this week. I think they wait towards the end as maybe not the last day, but, you know, leading up to the end of the term, just because they're going. I think they anticipate that there will be protests. I don't know that I don't think that Donald Trump is going to win. I don't think the Supreme Court is going to say he has absolute immunity from criminal prosecution. I do think that there's going to be some compromise where they say some private acts. He does, you know, some private acts there. There is going to be, you know, that he would not have immunity for and then some of the public acts he would. I think there is going to be kind of splitting hairs about what acts fall within the outer perimeter of his duties. They may send this back to Judge Chuck and in the District Court to make factual findings. So if that happens, I think that would be an unpopular opinion. And they may anticipate some protests here. And I just don't know that they're going to want to deal with that. So I do think this will be kicked as late as it possibly can get to avoid that scrutiny in terms of, you know, why it's taking so long. I I think they anticipate the reaction and that's largely why. OK, Christy Greenberg, we always appreciate you on the show. Thank you so much.