Jack Smith just made a gutsy, momentous decision in his prosecution of Trump | Margaret Sullivan

Smith has asked the supreme court to rule - urgently - on whether Trump has legal immunity, as the ex-president claims

Timing isn't everything. But it certainly matters, and seldom more so than in special counsel Jack Smith's prosecution of Donald Trump.

The former US president intends to use timing - delay, delay, delay - to avoid punishment for trying to overturn the 2020 election, which he lost to Joe Biden, and for fomenting a violent coup.

Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist