Lawyers for Donald Trump have filed an emergency application with the U.S. Supreme Court urging the justices to stay last week's appeals court decision that rejected his claim to absolute immunity from prosecution in special counsel Jack Smith's investigation into 2020 election interference.
“Donald J. Trump asked the Supreme Court on Monday to pause an appeals court’s ruling rejecting his claim that he is absolutely immune from criminal charges based on his attempts to subvert the 2020 election.
Unless the justices issue a stay while they consider whether to hear his promised appeal, proceedings in the criminal trial, which have been on hold, will resume.
The filing was Mr. Trump’s last-ditch effort to press his claim of total immunity, which has been rejected by two lower courts. The Supreme Court is now poised to determine whether and how fast his federal trial on charges that he tried to subvert the 2020 election will proceed. Unless the justices move quickly, the trial could be pushed into the heart of the 2024 campaign, or even past the election.
Mr. Trump’s filing came after a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit unanimously rejected Mr. Trump’s argument that he may not be prosecuted for actions he took while in office.
Mr. Trump’s lawyers urged the justices to put that ruling on hold and then to move forward at a deliberate pace.
‘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’, Mr. Trump’s application said.
The appeals court panel, made up of one Republican appointee and two Democratic ones, said Mr. Trump became an ordinary citizen in the eyes of the criminal law after leaving office.
‘For the purpose of this criminal case, former President Trump has become citizen Trump, with all of the defenses of any other criminal defendant’, the panel wrote. ‘But any executive immunity that may have protected him while he served as president no longer protects him against this prosecution’.
The new filing said the panel and the trial judge had gone astray in rejecting Mr. Trump’s arguments.
‘This is a stunning breach of precedent and historical norms’, Mr. Trump’s application said. ‘In 234 years of American history, no president was ever prosecuted for his official acts. Nor should they be’.
The panel had limited Mr. Trump’s litigation options, saying that the case would be returned to the trial court for further proceedings unless he sought a stay from the Supreme Court by Monday. Asking for review from the full appeals court, the panel said, would not stop the clock.
Mr. Trump’s filing asked the justices to restore that interim option, saying they should pause the panel’s decision while he asks the full appeals court to rehear its decision ‘in the ordinary course before seeking (if necessary) this court’s review’. If the Supreme Court grants that request, it will slow matters down considerably.
The trial had been set to start on March 4th, but Judge Tanya S. Chutkan has removed it from her calendar and it is not clear when it will be rescheduled. Much will depend on how fast the justices act”. -Adam Liptak and Abbie VanSickle, New York Times
Trump’s legal defense team has argued that the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia’s decision to deny Trump’s immunity claim will undermine future commanders-in-chief’s ability to deal impartially with the duties of the office as the threat of criminal prosecution becomes more prevalent.