Former President Donald Trump’s lawyers told the Supreme Court on Tuesday that a federal indictment accusing him of conspiring to overturn the 2020 election results and remain in power despite losing to Joe Biden requested that it be dismissed.
Attorney John Sauer said in a 67-page brief filed ahead of oral arguments scheduled for April 25 that the 77-year-old Trump enjoys full immunity from prosecution for his official actions while president. claimed to have done so.
“If impunity is denied, all future presidents will be effectively incapacitated by threats and blackmail while in office and will be traumatized for years after taking office at the hands of their political opponents.” Sauer wrote.
Prosecutors, led by Special Counsel Jack Smith, have determined that President Trump’s actions related to the 2020 election, which culminated in the Capitol riot by his supporters on January 6, 2021, were not official acts by the president, but rather were committed. It is claimed that this was an act of deception. his””competency as a candidate” and tried to overturn the election for his own benefit.
Two lower courts rejected President Trump’s immunity claims, but the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case in hopes of resolving larger constitutional issues, and the trial was scheduled to begin March 4 in Washington. has been postponed.
Trump’s lawyers also told the justices that if they did not accept Trump’s immunity claim, the case would need to be sent back to district court for additional “fact-finding.” Such a move would result in even longer delays before a trial is scheduled.
In their brief, Trump’s lawyers emphasized that for the first 244 years of our constitutional republic, “no former or current president has ever been criminally charged for official conduct.”
Sauer cited the 1982 Supreme Court case, Nixon v. Fitzgerald, in which the high court held that presidents are absolutely exempt from liability for civil damages based on acts of officialdom, but not for actions taken while in office. Absolute immunity from criminal charges was granted.
Trump’s team also claimed that the president was acting in his official capacity to assess whether “the election was tainted by fraud or fraud.”
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing the criminal case against Mr. Trump, rejected Mr. Trump’s claims in December, concluding that the president was not entitled to a “life-long release from prison.”
Last month, a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld her decision.
During oral arguments before the appeals court, Judge Florence Pan, a Biden appointee, asked the Trump campaign whether a “president who ordered SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a political opponent” could be held criminally liable.
“If he had been impeached and convicted first,” Sauer said at the time.
In a brief filed with the Supreme Court on Tuesday, the Trump campaign asked the high court to “neutralize one of the greatest threats in our nation’s history to the independent power of the President, the foundation of our republic.” I begged.
“Former presidents have absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for acts in their official capacity. Immunity stems directly from the Executive Vesting Clause and the separation of powers,” they wrote.
President Trump has appointed one-third of the Supreme Court’s justices, but the court faces a litany of politically charged cases this session.
The presumptive Republican nominee is the first current or former president to face criminal charges, with four indictments totaling 88 charges. President Trump has denied any wrongdoing and has maintained his complete innocence.
