The Excerpt podcast: Prosecutors ask Supreme Court to decide if Trump may claim immunity

On today's episode of The Excerpt podcast: In an 'extraordinary' move, prosecutors have asked the Supreme Court to decide if former President Donald Trump may claim immunity in his election interference case. USA TODAY Supreme Court Correspondent John Fritze has the latest. A pregnant Texas woman seeking an abortion has left the state after the Texas Supreme Court blocked her from having one. USA TODAY Justice Department Correspondent Bart Jansen explains what an investigation revealed into the military classified documents leak. A new tool helps patients compare hospital costs. The 2024 Golden Globe nominees have been announced.

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Hit play on the player above to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript below. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.

Taylor Wilson:

Good morning, I'm Taylor Wilson and today is Tuesday, December 12th, 2023. This is The Excerpt.

Today, how the Supreme Court is being asked to weigh in on Trump's election interference case. Plus, a pregnant Texas woman has left the state for an abortion, and an investigation reveals a lack of supervision in the military classified documents leak.

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Special Counsel Jack Smith yesterday asked the Supreme Court to step into the legal battle over whether former President Donald Trump can claim immunity from criminal charges tied to his alleged interference in the 2020 election. I caught up with USA Today Supreme Court correspondent, John Fritze to put the request in context. John, thanks for making the time.

John Fritze:

Hey, Taylor.

Taylor Wilson:

So John, what is Special Counsel Jack Smith requesting from the Supreme Court here?

John Fritze:

What he's really asking them to do is hurry it up. So you've got a lower court that ruled against former President Trump on whether he could claim immunity from these criminal charges stemming from his role in trying to overturn the 2020 election. And Trump appealed that ruling to the Court of Appeals here in Washington DC. That's a process that could take some time, maybe months before it would work its way up to the Supreme Court on a next appeal and so on. And the problem with that from Jack Smith's perspective is that the trial in this case is supposed to begin in early March. If this thing goes through the normal process, there's no way that that trial will start by March 4th.

And so the sort of extraordinary step that Jack Smith is taking here is saying, "Hey, look, let's cut out the DC Circuit before the Appeals court even gets a chance to look at this. We just need to get this resolved in the Supreme Court. Ultimately it's the Supreme Court that's going to have to decide this issue anyway."

Taylor Wilson:

Yeah. John, you used the word extraordinary. The government told the Supreme Court that it recognizes this request is extraordinary. Just how unique is this, John?

John Fritze:

Yeah, it doesn't happen very often. It has certainly happened. There was an abortion case that came up a year or two ago. It does happen that there are times when one side or the other asks to basically bypass an Appeals Court decision, but it's pretty rare. In my time in doing this, I've been on the speed for three years, I think I've seen it maybe once or maybe twice in the course of that time. So it's pretty unusual.

Taylor Wilson:

You mentioned speed is of course, of a lot of importance here. Just how quickly could the Supreme Court make a decision on this?

John Fritze:

So the court can move as quickly as it wants to. It tends to not move very quickly. So typically, when a case gets appealed to the Supreme Court, it takes months and months. The appeal is filed. It might take three, four, five months for the briefing to come in for the court to make a decision about whether to take it. If they say they will take it, that launches a whole new set of briefs that take months and months. Once those briefs are in, they schedule an argument. And then it usually takes them about two months on average to get an opinion down.

So really, there are cases that they grant in the end of a term that they don't decide until the next term or longer in some cases. And so it really can take some time. Jack Smith is citing interestingly, a 1974 case involving Richard Nixon and this dealt with kind of a similar issue when the Watergate prosecutors wanted to get their hands on these recordings that Nixon made in the Oval Office. And in that situation, the Supreme Court moved very quickly. According to Smith, within 16 days of the original request, and that was a different court and perhaps a less polarized court. I don't expect to see this court move quite that quickly, but it could move quickly if it wanted to. Within a series of weeks, it could get this thing on the arguments calendar. I think the question is what's the fairest way to do it? The court's going to want to be seen as being extremely fair here given the potential implications of a ruling for or against Trump. And I suspect they're going to be cautious to move at quite the pace that Jack Smith is suggesting.

Taylor Wilson:

All right. John Fritze covers the Supreme Court for USA Today. Thank you, John.

John Fritze:

Thank you.

Taylor Wilson:

Later yesterday, Justices indicated they would decide quickly whether to hear the case and ordered Trump's lawyers to respond by December 20th. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court's been busy. The court sided with an 83-year-old woman, letting a federal Appeals Court ruling stand that said Elise Brown could sue the police for excessive force, and in doing so could waive a legal doctrine known as qualified immunity that protects police from liability for civil rights violations in many circumstances. Officers pulled her over and thought the car she was driving was stolen, before drawing their guns and forcing Brown to her knees. And in another case, the court declined to take up a challenge to a ban on so-called conversion therapy for minors. The scientifically discredited practice is used to try and convert LGBTQ+ people to heterosexuality or to change a person's gender identity. By declining to hear the appeal, the court effectively left the ban in place.

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A pregnant Texas woman seeking an abortion has left the state after the Texas Supreme Court blocked her from having one, according to attorneys yesterday. Kate Cox, a mother of two from Dallas, is in her 21st week of pregnancy, and doctors have diagnosed her fetus with Trisomy 18, a fatal disorder. They recommended an abortion to preserve her reproductive health, with the procedure largely prohibited under Texas law. In 2021, Texas passed one of the most restrictive state abortion laws prohibiting the procedure once cardiac activity can be detected, typically around six weeks before most know they're pregnant. When the US Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade in 2022, the state's trigger law went into effect, prohibiting abortion from the moment of fertilization with a few exceptions. Nancy Northup is the Chief Executive from the Center for Reproductive Rights, which is representing Cox in a lawsuit challenging the Texas abortion bans. She said that Cox has, "Been in and out of the emergency room and she couldn't wait any longer."

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The Air Force has disciplined more than a dozen people after an investigation revealed a lack of adequate supervision and a culture of complacency following massive online leaks of classified information. I spoke with USA Today Justice Department Correspondent, Bart Jansen to learn more. Bart, thanks for making the time.

Bart Jansen:

Thanks for having me on.

Taylor Wilson:

So Bart, let's just start here. Can you remind us what allegedly happened here with this classified information initially?

Bart Jansen:

Charges were unsealed earlier this year against National Guard Airman, a guy named Jack Teixeira in Massachusets, accusing him of basically hosting classified documents on a social media site called Discord, where he was chatting about world affairs and even current wars being waged, the Russian invasion in Ukraine and also North Korea's race to develop nuclear weapons. And so he's hosting what wound up being hundreds of documents on this social media site, basically to show what information is available. And it took the military months and months to not just discover, but then to stop the infraction.

So he has now been charged with six counts of willful retention of defense records. His federal criminal case is still pending. He has pleaded not guilty and that they had an update to discuss evidence sharing and when motions will be due. So we don't have a trial date, but he is in the criminal justice system at this point.

Taylor Wilson:

And what did this investigation and report out this week reveal, Bart?

Bart Jansen:

So the Air Force Inspector General took a look at what was going on with the situation at Otis National Guard Base up in Massachusetts and found that basically people noticed Teixeira looking at classified documents that appeared to be outside his realm of what he needed to know. He had security clearances but that he basically didn't need to know these different compartmentalized pieces of information. But so after some people noticed that he was looking at this information and posting it as early as February of 2022, they would notice maybe they would pass it along, he'd get scolded. There'd be maybe a memo placed in his file, but that it never got passed along to the security officials. And this happened several times until finally this year, the leadership at the base passed along the information to security officials, then it got investigated thoroughly. That's how you get the charges. The FBI wound up arresting and charging him.

And so this Inspector General's report was to examine what was going on in the military chain of command. And the report found a lack of adequate supervision over Teixeira, and also a culture of complacency in dealing with these top secret documents dealing with current military battles and even locations of troops. It was stuff that the government wants to keep secret, that the Air Force says, "It's our duty for the military to keep secret," and they were just getting spread around on a social media site.

Taylor Wilson:

And Bart, are any new punishments coming as a result of this report?

Bart Jansen:

Well, the report told us that 15 members of the military have been disciplined in this investigation, that different disciplinary and administrative actions began to be taken September 7th against people ranging in rank from a staff Sergeant up to Colonel, basically for dereliction of their duties. I guess the highest ranking would be Colonel Sean Riley, the Commander of the 102nd Intelligence Wing, was relieved of that command and he also received some administrative action.

The report doesn't detail what all punishment was meted out to all of the 15, but 15 people have been disciplined. And so there is some reaction. The Air Force says it has initiated more training, more awareness of how to handle secret documents and how to report a problem if you notice something's going wrong. They say they've taken many steps in reaction to this infraction, this oversight now criminal federal charges. And so Air Force Secretary, Frank Kendall, says it's a breach of the nation's sacred trust to give away the country's secrets and that they want to ensure that this information doesn't fall into the hands of people who would try to do us harm.

Taylor Wilson:

All right, Bart Jansen covers the Justice Department for USA Today. Thank you, Bart.

Bart Jansen:

Thanks for having me.

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Taylor Wilson:

A federal law that went into effect in 2021 is designed to prevent surprise medical costs. The price transparency law requires that hospitals post cash prices and rates negotiated with insurers for a broad list of procedures in a computer readable format so the results can be analyzed, but price comparisons have been hard to come by until now. A free searchable database launched this week by a consumer non-profit compiles pricing data for nearly 6,000 US hospitals. The Patient Rights Advocate or PRA hospital price files finder aims to empower patients. PRA officials noted that the majority of healthcare is non-emergency and that consumers should have time and resources to shop and compare prices before undergoing a procedure. The new tool comes as around 100,000,000 Americans are in medical debt.

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The Golden Globe nominations are out. And after dominating the summer box office, Barbenheimer looks poised to do the same in award season. Yesterday, Barbie earned nine nominations, including Best Comedy or Musical, while Margot Robbie was nominated for Best Actress. In the atomic bomb-centered biopic, Oppenheimer scored Best Drama as part of its eight nominations. It'll have to battle out Martin Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon in the drama category. That film grabbed seven total nominations.

The Golden Globes have had a tumultuous few years. In 2021, the Los Angeles Times reported that none of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association's 87 voting journalists were black, spurring studios and publicists to threaten a boycott. NBC dropped the Globes amid the controversy, but aired the 2023 edition after the HFPA took steps to address representation in the group. You can find a full list of this year's nominees with a link in today's show notes.

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Thanks for listening to The Excerpt. You can get the podcast wherever you get your audio, and if you use a smart speaker, just ask for The Excerpt. As always, if you have any comments, you can find us at [email protected]. I'm back tomorrow with more of the Excerpt from USA Today.