Donald Trump urged a federal appeals court to throw out the federal election subversion criminal case in Washington, DC, again arguing in a filing late Saturday that he is protected under presidential immunity.
Trump wants the DC Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn a lower-court ruling rejecting his claims of immunity in special counsel Jack Smith’s election subversion case. The appeals panel is weighing Trump’s request, which the Supreme Court on Friday refused to take up on an expedited basis, as Smith requested.
The filing reiterates what the former president’s lawyers have repeatedly asserted – that Trump was working in his official capacity as president to “ensure election integrity” when he allegedly undermined the 2020 election results and therefore has immunity, and that his indictment is unconstitutional because presidents cannot be criminally prosecuted for “official acts” unless they are impeached and convicted by the Senate.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Trump wants the DC Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn a lower-court ruling rejecting his claims of immunity in special counsel Jack Smith’s election subversion case.
The former president has been attempting to delay his March 4 trial in the case, with his fight over the immunity claim underscoring those efforts.
The Supreme Court on Friday rejected a request from Smith for the justices to immediately hear the case before the DC Circuit had a chance to weigh in.
Trump’s team asked the appeals court earlier this month to examine the immunity ruling issued by Chutkan.
Chutkan rejected Trump’s immunity claims, writing in an opinion that his “four-year service as Commander in Chief did not bestow on him the divine right of kings to evade the criminal accountability that governs his fellow citizens.”
They also warned that, in their view, Trump’s indictment “threatens to launch cycles of recrimination and politically motivated prosecution that will plague our Nation for many decades to come.”
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