The Daily Fuckup

Donald Trump spent May 23, 2024, with two major election-related prosecutions still active in the background of his campaign. In the federal case tied to the effort to overturn the 2020 election, the Supreme Court had already heard argument on April 25 and had not yet ruled on Trump’s claim of immunity. In Georgia, prosecutors filed a cross-appeal that day from a March order that knocked out six counts in the Fulton County indictment.

The federal timeline was straightforward. The Justice Department filed its Supreme Court brief in December 2023, the justices heard argument in April 2024, and as of May 23 the Court still had not issued a decision. So the dispute was not in a new filing stage that day; it was still waiting on the Court’s answer to a question with obvious consequences for the criminal case and for Trump’s 2024 race.

Georgia added a separate legal front. On May 23, prosecutors moved to challenge the trial court’s March ruling that dismissed six counts, including three against Trump, from the Fulton County indictment. That kept the state case alive on appeal and prevented Trump’s legal team from treating the case as settled or shrinking away.

Taken together, the two matters showed the same basic problem for Trump’s campaign: neither fight had gone away. One was pending at the Supreme Court, and the other was moving through Georgia’s appellate process. Both kept the conduct at the center of the 2020 election cycle attached to his run in 2024.