The Daily Fuckup

Donald Trump’s fight over presidential immunity was active on February 19, 2024, but that date was not the moment the Supreme Court moved the case onto a new track. The docket for the linked stay application and certiorari petition shows that February 19 brought additional amicus filings. The application itself had already been submitted on February 12, and the Court had not yet granted review. ([supremecourt.gov](https://www.supremecourt.gov/docket/docketfiles/html/public/23a745.html))

The real procedural turn came nine days later. On February 28, the Court granted the request to treat the stay application as a petition for certiorari, accepted the case on a limited question about whether and to what extent a former president enjoys immunity from criminal prosecution for alleged official acts, and directed the D.C. Circuit to keep withholding its mandate. In the same order, the justices said the case would be set for oral argument during the week of April 22. ([supremecourt.gov](https://www.supremecourt.gov/docket/docketfiles/html/public/23a745.html))

That matters for the timeline. February 19 was an in-between docket date, not a decisive Supreme Court milestone. It showed the case was still very much alive, with outside groups filing briefs and the parties already litigating the stay application. But the Court had not yet taken the case for full review, and it had not yet paused the lower court judgment. ([supremecourt.gov](https://www.supremecourt.gov/docket/docketfiles/html/public/23a745.html))

The schedule tightened only after the February 28 order. The docket later reflected that oral argument was reset for Thursday, April 25, 2024. So the story on February 19 is not that the Supreme Court had advanced Trump’s immunity claim that day. It is that the case was still moving, with the consequential step still ahead on the calendar. ([supremecourt.gov](https://www.supremecourt.gov/docket/docketfiles/html/public/23-939.html))