Donald Trump requested that the U.S. Supreme Court block a ruling from the US Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, which decided that he does not have presidential immunity in the January 6 case.
“Conducting a months-long criminal trial of President Trump at the height of election season will radically disrupt President Trump’s ability to campaign against President Biden—which appears to be the whole point of the Special Counsel’s persistent demands for expedition,” the filing read.
“President Trump’s claim that Presidents have absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for their official acts presents a novel, complex, and momentous question that warrants careful consideration on appeal,” Trump’s lawyers wrote. “The panel opinion below, like the district court, concludes that Presidential immunity from prosecution for official acts does not exist at all. This is a stunning breach of precedent and historical norms.”
“In 234 years of American history, no President was ever prosecuted for his official acts,” the lawyers asserted. “Nor should they be.”
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts gave Special Counsel Jack Smith one week to respond to Trump’s filing.
American Faith reported that a federal appeals court ruled that there is no basis for Trump to claim presidential immunity.
“We cannot accept that the office of the Presidency places its former occupants above the law for all time thereafter,” the panel wrote.
“For the purpose of this criminal case, former President Trump has become citizen Trump, with all of the defenses of any other criminal defendant,” they added in the opinion. “But any executive immunity that may have protected him while he served as President no longer protects him against this prosecution.”
“At bottom, former President Trump’s stance would collapse our system of separated powers by placing the President beyond the reach of all three Branches,” the panel noted. “Presidential immunity against federal indictment would mean that, as to the President, the Congress could not legislate, the Executive could not prosecute and the Judiciary could not review.”
