Hi, and welcome back to Amicus.

This is Slate's podcast about the courts and the law and democracy and the U.S. Supreme Court.

I'm Dahlia Lithwick, and that is my beat.

And I should note that I have my annual January bronchitis, so I sound a little like Kermit.

I'm sorry.

We at the show want to wish you a happy 2024, and we enter this new year, a presidential election year, with all the glittering hope and hollow-eyed panic that has become the

amicus brand. Over the week, since we last checked in, former President Donald J. Trump

petitioned the Supreme Court to intervene in that Colorado 14th Amendment case that had

determined under Section 3, aka the disqualification clause, that he did indeed

do an insurrection in 2021 and is thus kicked off that state's primary ballot.

The state of Maine has jumped on that same train.

The Supreme Court also, as our friend Jeremy Stahl predicted in a recent show, told Jack Smith to slow his role on the appellate front in a different case.

That appeal from the special counsel of Donald Trump's claim to immunity will be heard by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals January 9th. In a filing just

this past weekend, Jack Smith warned that if the former president was granted broad immunity

for all of his actions around January 6, 2021, there would be nothing stopping a future president

from ordering the National Guard to murder his prominent

critics, direct the FBI to plant evidence on a political enemy, or, quote, incite his supporters

during a state of the union address to kill opposing lawmakers, thereby hamstringing any impeachment

proceeding to ensure that he remains in office unlawfully, end quote.

We're going to walk down, and I'll be there with you.

We're going to walk down.

We're going to walk down anyone you want, but I think right here we're going to walk down to the Capitol.

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