IN DECEMBER JACK SMITH tried to get the Supreme Court to quickly take up the question of whether Donald Trump was immune from prosecution for allegedly attempting to subvert the results of the election in 2020. The charges, wrote the special counsel (an independent prosecutor appointed by the Department of Justice), “implicate a central tenet of our democracy”. The justices’ prompt resolution was necessary to “permit the trial to occur on an appropriate timetable”. He must have known it was a long shot.