George Conway refutes Jake Tapper’s claim Trump got ‘big win’ with Supreme Court ruling

Conservative attorney George Conway challenged CNN anchor Jake Tapper’s claim that it was a “big win” when the U.S. Supreme Court decided Friday to not take up former President Trump’s criminal immunity.

“We are back with our breaking news coverage. The U.S. Supreme Court handing Donald Trump something of a win today, rejecting the special counsel’s request to urgently decide the issue of presidential immunity,” Tapper said on air, highlighted by Mediaite.

Conway, “not particularly a fan of Trump,” said he wanted to “issue a correction” to Tapper’s statement that the decision was a win. Tapper said it is more of a disagreement, to which Conway agreed.

“I think it’s not a big deal because I don’t think its going to affect the schedule that much … I think it shows the weakness of Donald Trump’s immunity claim,” Conway said, adding that he is the only person who has written a Supreme Court brief that won immunity for a president.

The Supreme Court declined Friday to take up the question of whether Trump can be prosecuted for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Trump has claimed he should receive presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts.

Special counsel Jack Smith skipped over the appeals court and brought the issue directly before the Supreme Court in an effort to keep the trial on schedule.

The justices agreed to expedite the decision but ultimately sided with the former president, who argued the case should be considered first by the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals in a Jan. 9 hearing.

Conway said the D.C. court has “acted really, really, really fast” and said he would not be surprised “if we saw a decision from them in a matter of days.”

“I think if I were on that panel and I were the presiding judge, I’d be writing the opinion now because I just don’t think … there’s anything there to the claims that Trump has been making,” Conway said. Conway predicted that the D.C. court will lift the stay by the third week of January and that teams will be able to start preparing for trial as soon as March. If it were to return to the Supreme Court, Conway said a decision could come by June.