Politics

The Trump Supreme Court is back for another term as Election Day nears

Published

2 years ago

November 11, 2024

The Trump Supreme Court is back for another term as Election Day nears

Welcome back, Deadline: Legal Newsletter readers. As if there isn’t enough going on with Election Day just weeks away, the Supreme Court is starting a new term. Chief Justice John Roberts and company are coming off a term that featured (among other things) them giving Donald Trump broad criminal immunity and approving his latest presidential run despite his involvement in the Jan. 6 insurrection.

A big open question heading into November is: Will the Republican-appointed majority find a way to put the Republican nominee back in office?

For a brief refresher on how this works: The court hears oral arguments in two-week sessions through April, issuing rulings on a rolling basis and usually wrapping up by late June. Sometimes, the justices stretch into July, as they did when capping off last term with the immunity case. They can also get emergency appeals at any time, which is how last-minute election challenges could reach them on the so-called shadow docket.

So, what legal mischief awaits, besides the election (a big “besides,” I know)? It’s a developing story because the court adds cases as the term proceeds. The court just granted a bunch Friday, including one about gun-maker liability. Heading into the last term, the court hadn’t yet added some of the most significant disputes, like the immunity appeal the justices took up in February. An example of another pending petition the court could still accept is former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows’ bid to move his Georgia state election subversion charges to federal court; that would add yet another wrinkle to the already-hobbled case against Trump, Meadows and others.

But so farsome of the cases the justices are slated to hear involve transgender rights “ghost guns” and a First Amendment challenge to a Texas law requiring age verification to access sexual content online.

The “ghost guns” appeal — over regulating kits for making untraceable weapons at home — will be heard Tuesday at the court that OK’d deadly bump stocks last term. Wednesday features an unusual capital case hearing from Oklahoma, where even the state says that death row inmate Richard Glossip should get a new trial because of prosecutorial misconduct. But instead of just ordering a new trial outright, the court that backed the Trump-era execution spree has appointed a third party to argue why Glossip — who maintains his innocence — should still be put to death. Even former Trump administration official Ken Cuccinelli thinks the court shouldn’t force this execution.

While the justices declined to save Trump from his 2020 defeat, they’re coming off an unusually Trump-friendly term.

On the election front, the court has already fielded some emergency appeals in recent weeks. The justices divided in partially backing Republican efforts to restrict Arizona voting in August, while last month unanimously rejecting third-party bids from Jill Stein and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be on the ballot in Nevada and New Yorkrespectively. We’ll be closely watching the beleaguered court — which faces calls for reform — as more voting-related appeals inevitably reach Washington in the coming weeks. While the justices declined to save Trump from his 2020 defeat, they’re coming off an unusually Trump-friendly term.

The former president’s four criminal cases make the election stakes very real for him. If he wins in November, he can dismiss his two federal prosecutions: the election subversion case in Washington and the classified documents case in Florida. The election case is back in the D.C. trial court, where U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan is tasked with figuring out what the high court’s vague immunity test means. The justices can review Chutkan’s work again before any trial goes forward, which wouldn’t happen until long after the election (that is, if Trump loses and can’t kill the case). Smith is separately appealing U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon’s documents case dismissal to a federal appeals court, where outside groups are calling for the Trump-appointed judge’s ouster.

And finally, presidents can’t pardon or dismiss state casesbut Trump’s Georgia and New York ones could be even further delayed if he wins next month’s election. The Georgia case is already tied up with a pretrial appeal over the defense bid to disqualify Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. Meanwhile, after Election Day, Judge Juan Merchan in New York is set to decide Nov. 12 whether the immunity ruling upends Trump’s May guilty verdicts for falsifying business records. The GOP nominee’s already-delayed sentencing is set for Nov. 26, but only if Merchan rules against the defense on immunity. Yet, even if Merchan rejects Trump on Nov. 12, the latest sentencing date is still uncertainbecause the former president will likely launch an immediate appeal, potentially all the way to the justices.

So whether it’s in the election, Trump’s legal cases or both, the high court has multiple opportunities ahead to shape Trump’s — and the country’s — future.

Have any questions or comments for me? I’d love to hear from you! Please emaildeadlinelegal@nbcuni.comfor a chance to be featured in a future newsletter.

Jordan Rubin

Jordan Rubin is the Deadline: Legal Blog writer. He was a prosecutor for the New York County District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and is the author of “Bizarro,” a book about the secret war on synthetic drugs. Before he joined BLN, he was a legal reporter for Bloomberg Law.

Politics

World Cup fuels ticketing reform demands

Published

11 hours ago

June 21, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Demands are growing for a political reckoning over ticket scams at the World Cup — and beyond.

The National Independent Venue Association and Fan Alliance, organizations representing and advocating for entertainment venues and artists respectively, sent a joint letter to Congress on Thursday, calling on lawmakers to ban speculative and ghost tickets, cases where resellers flog tickets they don’t actually have.

The letter — addressed to Speaker Mike Johnson, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer — includes nearly two dozen accounts of fans who say they were scammed out of thousands of dollars trying to get tickets to the World Cup, which began last week. The groups are also asking fans to share their own stories with elected officials via the Fix the Tix Fan Action Center that launched last week.

“Every one of these stories erodes the public’s faith that consumers should and will be protected from fraud,” NIVA Executive Director Stephen Parker and Fan Alliance founder Donald Cohen wrote. “We urge Congress to work with us to prevent fraud like this in the future and finally enact ticket resale consumer protections that will protect Americans and ensure affordability.”

The letter flagged fans like Dacy Gillespie, who bought World Cup tickets for her sons on Christmas, only to learn on match day — months later — that the seller couldn’t deliver them. And Skylie Shore, who Parker and Cohen said spent well over $6,000 on tickets to the Scotland-Haiti match on June 13, but was forced to wait outside the stadium because she couldn’t access them as fans marched in on gameday.

“These examples reveal a consistent pattern: consumer deception, speculative ticket sales, and broken-hearted American families at the hands of resale ticketing companies like StubHub,” Parker and Cohen wrote.

In a statement, StubHub spokesperson Jack Sterne said that the platform does not allow speculative ticket sales, and blamed FIFA for users’ difficulty in accessing their tickets.

“We understand that attending the World Cup represents a significant investment in time and money, and we take our responsibility to every fan who books through our platform seriously,” Sterne said in a statement. “Many of the issues fans are facing trace back to the event organizer’s technology infrastructure, newly announced transfer restrictions, and a new app that was launched just a month ago.”

In response, FIFA said in a statement that the organization “can guarantee the validity and delivery of tickets purchased through its official platforms” and that FIFA.com/tickets “is the official ticket sales channel” for the tournament.

NIVA and Fan Alliance are urging congressional leadership to place universal price-gouging limits on ticket resale, enact stringent fines on perpetrators and a violation-reporting mechanism for ticket scams, and require secondary ticketing platforms to produce data on ticket fulfillment and consumer complaints.

The groups are not the only ones monitoring for evidence of shady ticket practices. Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway issued a consumer guidance in advance of the tournament, urging match-goers to beware of fraud and promising to hold offenders accountable. And the FBI in May put out a public service announcement, warning fans against purchasing tickets on copycat websites modeled on FIFA’s.

“With the World Cup coming to Kansas City, excitement is high and, unfortunately, so is the potential for fraud,” Hanaway said in her statement. “Missourians should be able to enjoy this once-in-a-generation event without fear of being deceived. My office will hold accountable anyone who seeks to exploit our families, and we stand ready to assist anyone who encounters suspicious activity.”