Smith had requested the Supreme Court to provide a ruling before the lower appeals court, but Trump had persuaded the justices to deny his request.

On Wednesday, former President Donald Trump urged the U.S. Supreme Court to deny a request from federal prosecutors to look into his argument that he cannot be charged for attempting to overturn his election defeat in 2020. Trump filed the court document in response to U.S. Special Counsel Jack Smith’s unprecedented request, which, if approved, would bring Trump’s claim of criminal immunity before the justices while a lower court considers its options.

In an attempt to slow down the judicial system and postpone the start of his trial, which is presently scheduled for March, Trump asked the justices to deny Smith’s request for the Supreme Court to comment before the lower appeals court did. Prosecutors have charged Trump, the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, with trying to employ conspiracies to unduly affect the election result of Democrat Joe Biden in November 2020 in order to obstruct Congress and defraud the United States government.

In the document, Trump’s attorneys stated that the Special Counsel is pushing the justices to “rush to decide the issues with reckless abandon” and forego the standard appeals procedure, which includes a ruling by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Right now, the court ought to turn down that offer.