Lawyers for Donald Trump urged the US supreme court on Tuesday to dismiss an indictment charging the former president with conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election, renewing their arguments that he is immune from prosecution for official acts taken in the White House.
Lower courts have already twice rejected the immunity claims, but Mr Trump’s lawyers will get a fresh chance to press their case before the supreme court when the justices hear arguments on April 25th.
The high court’s decision to consider the matter has left the criminal case on hold pending the outcome of the appeal, making it unclear whether special counsel Jack Smith will be able to put the former president on trial before November’s election.
In a brief filed on Tuesday, Mr Trump’s lawyers repeated many of the same arguments that judges have already turned aside, asserting that a president “cannot function, and the presidency itself cannot retain its vital independence, if the president faces criminal prosecution for official acts once he leaves office”.
“A denial of criminal immunity would incapacitate every future president with de facto blackmail and extortion while in office, and condemn him to years of post-office trauma at the hands of political opponents,” the lawyers wrote.
“The threat of future prosecution and imprisonment would become a political cudgel to influence the most sensitive and controversial presidential decisions, taking away the strength, authority and decisiveness of the presidency.”
Mr Smith’s team has said former presidents do not enjoy absolute immunity and that, in any event, the steps Mr Trump is accused of taking in his failed but frantic effort to remain in power after he lost to Democrat Joe Biden would not count as official presidential acts.
US district judge Tanya Chutkan, who is presiding over the case, and a three-judge federal appeals panel in Washington have both agreed with Mr Smith, but the case – once scheduled for trial on March 4th – has been effectively frozen for months as the appeal continues to wind through the courts.
Mr Trump’s lawyers also told the justices that in the event they do not accept his immunity arguments, they should send the case back to Ms Chutkan for additional “fact-finding”.
Such a move would result in even lengthier delays before a trial could be scheduled.
The case is one of four state and federal criminal prosecutions that Mr Trump is facing as he seeks to reclaim the White House.
He and his lawyers have sought to delay the cases from proceeding to trial, a strategy that to date has yielded some success for the former president.
Of those four, only one – a case in New York charging Mr Trump in connection with hush money payments meant to suppress claims of an extramarital sexual encounter – is on track to start in the next several months.
The judge in that case delayed the trial last week until at least mid-April as he seeks answers about a last-minute evidence dump that the former president’s lawyers said had hampered their ability to prepare their defence. – AP