By MARK SHERMAN (Associated Press)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has scheduled a special session to hear arguments over whether former President Donald Trump can be prosecuted over his efforts to undo his 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden.

The case, to be argued Thursday, stems from Trump’s attempts to have charges against him dismissed. Lower courts have found he cannot claim for actions that, prosecutors say, illegally sought to interfere with the election results.

The Republican ex-president has been charged in federal court in Washington with conspiring to overturn the 2020 election, one of four criminal cases he is facing. A trial has begun in New York over hush money payments to a porn star to cover up an alleged sexual encounter.

The Supreme Court is moving faster than usual in taking up the case, though not as quickly as special counsel Jack Smith wanted, raising questions about whether there will be time to hold a trial before the November election, if the justices agree with lower courts that Trump can be prosecuted.

The justices ruled earlier this term in another case that arose from Trump’s actions following the election, culminating in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. The court unanimously held that states could not invoke a provision of the 14th Amendment known as the insurrection clause to prevent Trump from appearing on presidential ballots.

Here are some things to know:

WHAT’S THE ISSUE?

When the justices agreed on Feb. 28 to hear the case, they put the issue this way: “Whether and if so to what extent does a former President enjoy presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for conduct alleged to involve official acts during his tenure in office.”

That’s a question the Supreme Court has never had to answer. Never before has a former president faced criminal charges so the court hasn’t had occasion to take up the question of whether the president’s unique role means he should be shielded from prosecution, even after he has left office.

Both sides point to the absence of previous prosecutions to undergird their arguments. Trump’s lawyers told the court that presidents would lose their independence and be unable to function in office if they knew their actions in office could lead to criminal charges once their terms were over. Smith’s team wrote that the lack of previous criminal charges “underscores the unprecedented nature” of what Trump is accused of.

NIXON’S GHOST

Richard Nixon resigned the presidency in disgrace nearly 50 years ago rather than face impeachment by the House of Representatives and removal from office by the Senate in the Watergate scandal.

Both Trump’s lawyers and Smith’s team are invoking Nixon at the Supreme Court.

Trump’s team cites Nixon v. Fitzgerald, a 1982 case in which the Supreme Court held by a 5-4 vote that former presidents cannot be sued in civil cases for their actions while in office. The case grew out of the firing of a civilian Air Force analyst who testified before Congress about cost overruns in the production of the C-5A transport plane.

“In view of the special nature of the President’s constitutional office and functions, we think it appropriate to recognize absolute Presidential immunity from damages liability for acts within the ‘outer perimeter’ of his official responsibility,” Justice Lewis Powell wrote for the court.

But that decision recognized a difference between civil lawsuits and “the far weightier” enforcement of federal criminal laws, Smith’s team told the court. They also invoked the high court decision that forced Nixon to turn over incriminating White House tapes for use in the prosecutions of his top aides.

And prosecutors also pointed to President Gerald Ford’s pardon of Nixon, and Nixon’s acceptance of it, as resting “on the understanding that the former President faced potential criminal liability.”

TIMING IS EVERYTHING

The subtext of the immunity fight is about timing. Trump has sought to push back the trial until after the election, when, if he were to regain the presidency, he could order the Justice Department to drop the case. Prosecutors have been pressing for a quick decision from the Supreme Court so that the clock can restart on trial preparations. It could take three months once the court acts before a trial actually starts.

If the court hands down its decision in late June, which would be the typical timeframe for a case argued so late in the court’s term, there might not be enough time to start the trial before the election.

WHO ARE THE LAWYERS?

Trump is represented by D. John Sauer, a former Rhodes Scholar and Supreme Court clerk to Justice Antonin Scalia. While serving as Missouri’s solicitor general, Sauer won the only Supreme Court case he has argued until now, a 5-4 decision in an execution case. Sauer also filed legal briefs asking the Supreme Court to repudiate Biden’s victory in 2020.

In addition to working for Scalia early in his legal career, Sauer also served as a law clerk to Michael Luttig when he was a Republican-appointed judge on the Richmond, Virginia-based federal appeals court. Luttig joined with other former government officials on a brief urging the Supreme Court to allow the prosecution to proceed. Luttig also advised Vice President Mike Pence not to succumb to pressure from Trump to reject some electoral votes, part of Trump’s last-ditch plan to remain in office.

The justices are quite familiar with Sauer’s opponent, Michael Dreeben. As a longtime Justice Department official, Dreeben argued more than 100 cases at the court, many of them related to criminal law. Dreeben was part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election and joined Smith’s team last year after a stint in private practice.

In Dreeben’s very first Supreme Court case 35 years ago, he faced off against Chief Justice John Roberts, then a lawyer in private practice.

FULL BENCH

Of the nine justices hearing the case, three were nominated by Trump — Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. But it’s the presence of a justice confirmed decades before Trump’s presidency, Justice Clarence Thomas, that’s generated the most controversy.

Thomas’s wife, Ginni Thomas, urged the reversal of the 2020 election results and then attended the rally that preceded the Capitol riot. That has prompted calls for the justice to step aside from several court cases involving Trump and Jan. 6.

But Thomas has ignored the calls, taking part in the unanimous court decision that found states cannot kick Trump off the ballot as well as last week’s arguments over whether prosecutors can use a particular obstruction charge against Capitol riot defendants. Trump faces the same charge in special counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution in Washington.

Related Articles

Supreme Court will decide whether Trump is immune from federal prosecution. Here’s what’s next

Supreme Court to hear oral arguments on abortion and Trump

Key players: Who’s who at Donald Trump’s hush money criminal trial

Trump tried to ‘corrupt’ the 2016 election, prosecutor alleges as hush money trial gets underway

Noah Feldman: Jan. 6 case will test the Supreme Court’s ‘textualist’ hypocrisy

When St. Paul City Council Member Cheniqua Johnson read through written comments submitted on the proposed St. Paul Bicycle Plan, she was taken aback to find just a handful of emails from her East Side ward, despite public outreach from city staff for more than a year. And by a handful of comments, she means exactly that.

“I pulled out the written comments from Ward 7, and I had a mighty three,” said Johnson during the city council meeting last week, urging East Siders to pick up the phone, submit an email or pen a letter. “Just know that we are reading them. It goes to a real human.”

Nevertheless, said Johnson, many low-income residents do not have cars, one of the reasons she said she likely would vote in favor of the plan this week.

“A lot of our community members bike, sometimes out of necessity,” she said.

City council vote

With carbon emissions goals in mind, the city council is poised to approve on Wednesday the first sweeping write-through of the city’s then-groundbreaking 2015 bicycle plan, a key document that sets the tone and general vision for up to 163 miles of new bike lanes and related amenities in the 16 years ahead.

That’s a 75% increase in St. Paul bikeways by 2040, most of it rolled into what’s being dubbed as a “low-stress network” of off-street bike corridors drawn on paper with young families, hesitant fence-sitters and non-bikers in mind.

“Specifically what this plan hopes to accomplish is to attract new people riding bikes … who haven’t felt comfortable riding,” said Jimmy Shoemaker, senior city planner, addressing the city council last week. In national surveys, 54% of respondents said they were interested in cycling but hesitant, mainly due to safety concerns.

With the goal of making cycling more accessible across all ages and abilities, the 51-page document prioritizes “protected” lanes that are level with the sidewalk over in-street lanes, while still advocating for a range of approaches on different streets. During a public hearing last Wednesday, the plan was praised by cyclers as a model for inviting newcomers into their community.

“Surveys show the biggest barrier to cycling is proximity to cars. Separated bikeways … address this for all ages and abilities, not just people like me,” said Zack Mensinger, chair of the St. Paul Bicycle Coalition, addressing the council. “This forms a network. Too much of our existing bike infrastructure is fragmented and incomplete, meaning from block to block your route might just end.”

Funding, engagement

Two things the bike plan does not lay out are how new bike lanes will be funded, or how to boost greater engagement on the city’s East Side, which has many immigrant and working class corners that appear disconnected from the prospect of long-term planning for bike corridors.

Shoemaker said the bike plan’s priorities were informed by a survey of 1,700 city residents in the fall of 2021, which drew about 10% of its responses from the East Side, an area comprising roughly a fourth or more of the city population.

Recognizing the disparity, city staff later held outreach events at both the Conway and Battle Creek rec centers, as well as Lake Phalen.

Still, Shoemaker acknowledged more input will be key as specific projects move forward.

“This is kind of beginning,” he said. “The bicycle plan is a decades-long vision for St. Paul. Every single one of those lines on the planned bicycle network represents a different project, and with each project will come more public engagement.”

Separated bikeways a common request

In the local surveys, he said, the most common request was for more separated bikeways, which is considered best practice within federal and state road planning circles when daily traffic volumes exceed 6,000 vehicles.

On the East Side, the most immediate question raised by the bike plan is along Maryland Avenue between Johnson Parkway and Ruth Street. City planners are recommending against a bikeway on the Ramsey County-owned road because of competition for space with the future St. Paul-to-White Bear Lake Purple Line, as well as the Como/Maryland H Line bus rapid transit project, which would connect downtown Minneapolis to Maplewood.

“After we spoke with the county, it was ultimately our recommendation to not include a bikeway on that,” Shoemaker said. The Planning Commission and Transportation Committee disagreed, and have asked the city council to keep a line on the bike plan map indicating Maryland Avenue would be considered a potential “bikeway for further study.”

On any particular street, the bike plan does not specify a particular layout, including whether the city would build a two-way bikeway or add a path on either side of the street. Design details get worked out as street reconstruction is plotted. “Because we don’t offer specific designs, it does not offer an estimate for the cost of any single one project,” Shoemaker said.

Nor does the bike plan specify construction or maintenance funding. Most off-street lanes are added as part of street rebuilds and future public transit projects, making them pricier and at times more politically contentious additions than just painting lines on an existing street.

Other questions

Few areas of the city have been as polarized around the concept of off-street lanes as Summit Avenue, where opponents fear a heavy impact on tree canopy.

“What will it cost?” said Tom Darling, president of the Summit Avenue Residential Preservation Association, urging the council last week to hold off on the plan and seek further public engagement and firm cost estimates. “This is going to affect hundreds or thousands of people on specific streets, specific blocks. Why not send each of them a postcard … saying, ‘We’re considering this. The upshot of this is going to be increased property taxes, safety for bicyclists…’”

The city has added 65 miles of bikeways since 2015, including major network additions to the St. Paul Grand Round, Capital City Bikeway and the Highland Bridge development, for a total of 218 miles of bike corridors as of 2023.

Funding for snow and ice removal, signage placements and other maintenance has not grown in step, Shoemaker said, and “this (bike plan) does not identify new sources for maintenance funding.”

Council Member Rebecca Noecker said while she was thrilled with the plan overall, that’s no small concern.

“We cannot keep building without budgeting to maintain,” Noecker said.

Key goals

Among the bike plan’s key goals:

• Separated bikeways, currently 42% of the city’s bike network of bike corridors, would grow to as much as 73% of the network.

• Complete the Capital City Bikeway and Grand Round networks.

• Bikeways should be no more than a half-mile apart, and separated bikeways and paths and
bicycle boulevards should be no more than one mile apart.

• Build bikeways with the city’s new 1% sales tax, which is dedicated to parks and roads improvements.

• Work with railroad companies to build bikeways in or alongside rail corridors.

• Pursue external funding to construct bikeways separate from ongoing street reconstructions.

Public hearing

A public hearing on Wednesday drew a strong showing of support from the cycling community, as well as a few critical comments from plan opponents.

“I would probably be classified as a confident biker, but I’m also an aging biker,” said Deborah Schlick, a West Sider. “I’m getting more fussy about where I bike … and the way people drive in the years since the pandemic has gotten more reckless, more fast, so I almost always seek out a separated bike path.”

Macalester-Groveland resident Alexandra Cunliffe told the council last week that she and her husband share a car, a set-up that’s only made possible by the city’s bike corridors. But there’s still plenty of places she’s hesitant to roll into the street with her four-year-old cycling behind her.

“We’ve just been so thrilled at the increase in bike infrastructure in the city,” said Cunliffe, who urged the council to support more off-street lanes “so as my kids get older, they get to bike like we enjoy so much.”

Related Articles

Joe Soucheray: Do you really want to put more copper wiring on the streets?

St. Paul City Council weighs rezoning Marshall Avenue corner for 7 townhomes

St. Paul City Council requires new parking lots to be EV-ready

St. Thomas neighbors appeal site plan approved for new D1 hockey, basketball arena

St. Paul City Council Member Anika Bowie filed for office using wrong address, owes $1,200 in parking, traffic tickets

When people driving on a St. Paul freeway during rush hour saw a fiery crash, they stopped and rushed to help the driver.

Kadir Tolla’s vehicle is outfitted with cameras, which captured the dramatic rescue that he was part of and the video has been receiving international attention.

Tessa Sand, a registered nurse, was heading to work and as soon she saw a man in the crashed car, “I was pulling over, without a doubt,” she said Monday. “It’s just what you do for somebody who needs help.”

Dave Klepaida, a Minnesota Department of Transportation “highway helper,” happened to be passing by. He broke out the car’s window and other people pulled the driver to safety.

“All the people that were there, all teamed up and did this,” he said.

The Minnesota State Patrol “is grateful that the driver is OK due to the heroic actions of the individuals who stopped to help,” said State Patrol Lt. Jill Frankfurth. “… The actions of those who pulled this motorist from the burning car demonstrates the importance and willingness of people throughout Minnesota looking out for each other. We are thankful that everyone remained safe.”

Minnesota Department of Transportation Freeway Incident Response Safety Team (FIRST) drivers have window punches attached to their keychains. They can be used to break a car window. (Courtesy of the Minnesota Department of Transportation)

It was Thursday about 6:30 p.m. when a 71-year-old St. Paul driver was eastbound on Interstate 94 before Snelling Avenue and drifted to the right. His vehicle left the road, struck a light pole and then a guardrail, and started on fire, Frankfurth said.

No injuries were reported, but the driver was transported to Regions Hospital for evaluation, according to the State Patrol.

Tolla, who owns Second Home Adult Day Center in St. Anthony with his wife, said he’d already stopped to help someone that day. He saw an older woman with a dog whose vehicle was broken down and he stopped to see if he could help; she said she’d already called a tow truck.

“If I wouldn’t have stopped to help her, I wouldn’t have been on the highway at that time,” said Tolla, 35, of Brooklyn Park. He used to drive a semi truck and he said there were so many people who stopped to help him, “I’m just returning the help I got before.”

In Thursday’s crash, because the car was on the other side of the guardrail, it was preventing the driver’s side door from opening. “We tried and we tried,” said Tolla, adding that the situation felt hopeless.

Klepaida, a MnDOT Freeway Incident Response Safety Team (FIRST) driver for 10 years, said he’s never faced a situation like last week’s. He used the window punch he carries with him, which FIRST drivers have on their keychains, and broke the driver’s window.

Tolla and other people gathered were able to pull the driver out the window and carry him to safety.

Sand was standing back from the fire. She asked the man some health-related questions and inquired if she could call anyone for him. He gave Sand his wife’s number, and she contacted her.

“I think it’s truly amazing, watching what this group of strangers did for this man,” Sand said. “It’s very uplifting.”

Related Articles

Letters: Minnesota needs a task force on reckless motorcycle riders

Pilot killed in Indiana plane crash was Purdue student from Twin Cities

Motorist killed in Coon Rapids collision with pickup truck

St. Paul police, Minnesota National Guard team up to steer military members to careers as officers

Gov. Tim Walz says copper wire theft bills are ‘top priority,’ urges legislators to move them forward