In a major decision Tuesday, a federal appeals court ruled that Donald Trump has no protection from prosecution as a past president and therefore face charges of plotting to overturn the 2020 election.
A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that Trump’s claim to “absolute immunity” from criminal accountability for activities taken while in the White House is “unsupported by precedent, history, or the text and structure of the Constitution.”
The decision is a significant legal defeat for Trump, 77, the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, and a spokeswoman for the former president said he will appeal “in order to safeguard the Presidency and the Constitution.”
“If immunity is not granted to a President, every future President who leaves office will be immediately indicted by the opposing party,” Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung said. “Without complete immunity, a President of the United States would not be able to properly function!”
The appeals court placed the immunity finding on hold until Monday to allow Trump to file an appeal with the US Supreme Court, which will determine whether to hear the case or uphold the appeals court ruling.
Trump was scheduled to stand trial in Washington on March 4 on charges of conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election won by Democrat Joe Biden, but the district judge overseeing the case was forced to postpone the start of the trial pending an appeals court decision on the immunity issue.
District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who will preside over Trump’s election interference trial, denied Trump’s immunity claim in December, and the judges who heard his appeal last month were unconvinced by his reasoning.
“For the purpose of this criminal case, former President Trump has become citizen Trump, with all of the defences of any other criminal defendant,” the three appellate court judges stated in their unanimous decision.
“But any executive immunity that may have protected him while he served as President no longer protects him against this prosecution,” they went on to say.
Special Counsel Jack Smith, who launched the election conspiracy case against Trump, the first former US president to face criminal charges, had been working to keep the trial scheduled for March on track.
Lawyers for the former president have repeatedly pushed to postpone it until after the November presidential election, when Trump could potentially have all federal cases against him dropped if he is reelected.
‘Pandora’s Box’
Trump is now facing 2020 election tampering charges in Georgia, and he has been indicted in Florida for illegally taking a substantial number of top secret documents with him when he left the White House.
During his presidency, Trump was impeached twice by the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives but acquitted both times by the Senate.
During last month’s appeals court hearings, all three judges appeared doubtful of Trump’s lawyer’s immunity arguments.
“I think it’s paradoxical to say that his constitutional duty ‘to take care that the laws be faithfully executed’ allows him to violate criminal laws,” said Judge Karen Henderson, who was appointed by former Republican President George H.W. Bush.
Trump’s attorney, John Sauer, told the judges that a president can only be punished for activities performed while in the White House if impeached and convicted by Congress.
“To authorize the prosecution of a president for his official acts would open a Pandora’s Box from which this nation may never recover,” he remarked.
This week, the Supreme Court is expected to hear another key election-related lawsuit.
In December, the Colorado Supreme Court prevented Trump from standing on the state’s Republican presidential primary ballot due to his role in his followers’ January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol.
Trump appealed the Colorado decision, and the conservative-majority Supreme Court, which includes three justices nominated by the former president, will hear oral arguments in the issue on Thursday.