The Supreme Court has granted Special Counsel Jack Smith’s request to speed up the consideration on whether former President Donald Trump can be prosecuted in his 2020 election case.

Smith had asked the higher courts to remove any delays that could push back the trial scheduled for March till after next November’s presidential election.

According to the motion filed to the court, the special counsel requested that Trump’s lawyers be given till Dec. 18 to respond. The court, in its ruling, asked Trump’s lawyers to respond to the motion by Dec. 20.

Smith went to the Supreme Court after U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan ruled that the case could go forward and Trump sought a reversal from the federal appeals court in Washington. Not letting the appellate process play out is Smith and his team’s way of cutting the chances of the trial getting postponed and Trump getting elected by voters in next year’s election.

“This case presents a fundamental question at the heart of our democracy: whether a former President is absolutely immune from federal prosecution for crimes committed while in office or is constitutionally protected from federal prosecution when he has been impeached but not convicted before the criminal proceedings begin,” Smith and his team wrote in the motion.

“It is of imperative public importance that respondent’s claims of immunity be resolved by this Court and that respondent’s trial proceed as promptly as possible if his claim of immunity is rejected,” the motion further read.

Smith has been slammed for trying to bypass the federal appeals court. “There is absolutely no reason to rush this sham to trial except to injure President Trump and tens of millions of his supporters,” Trump’s presidential campaign stated after the surprise move.

According to an unnamed spokesperson from the campaign, Smith, a Biden “henchman,” is “obsessed with interfering in the 2024 Presidential Election with the goal of preventing President Trump from retaking the Oval Office.”

The trial’s current March 4 trial comes a day before Super Tuesday, when over a dozen states will be having their Republican caucuses. After that, another trial will begin on March 25 in the New York case in which Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg accuses him of falsifying business records.

About two months later, on May 20, the GOP front runner is set to start facing trial for his classified document case.