Carrie Johnson

The court basically gave him near absolute immunity from prosecution for his official acts.

And since then, on the emergency docket, Trump has been racking up win after win.

But the court has not always sided with him.

There have been a couple of prominent examples lately.

The court told Trump to facilitate the return of Kilmer Obrego Garcia after he was shipped out of the country.

And the court also recently refused Trump on the National Guard issue in Chicago.

The open question here is whether on some of these cases that really matter to him, like tariffs and birthright citizenship, where even prominent conservatives are saying Trump has gone too far, whether this court majority will stand by the president.

Interestingly enough, the Solicitor General John Sauer actually made a concession on that very point in one of the first birthright citizenship cases.

Sauer would not say that the administration would follow what lower courts did, but he did promise Justice Amy Coney Barrett that the administration would do what the Supreme Court said.

He has listened to what the court had to say.

This case is interesting in part because this project says Judge Merriam is the subject of a previous complaint.

There's a public order from 2023 that does not name this judge but seems to match details in the new filing from the Legal Accountability Project.

That investigation found the judge had an overly harsh management style.

Officials closed the investigation after the judge agreed to watch workplace videos and receive some counseling.

The GOP-led House Judiciary Committee dropped the nearly 300-page transcript on New Year's Eve.

Jack Smith fielded questions about his work building criminal cases against now-President Donald Trump over Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

and his alleged refusal to turn over secret documents to the FBI.

Smith told lawmakers the election case was built on Republicans who put their allegiance to the country before their political party, and that several state and federal officials would have been witnesses for the prosecution.

The Justice Department dropped both cases against Trump after last year's election, following a long policy that the sitting president cannot be prosecuted.

Carrie Johnson, NPR News, Washington.