6th February, 2024
The Federal Appeal Court says on Tuesday that former President Donald Trump is not immune from prosecution for alleged crimes he committed during his presidency to reverse the 2020 election results.
The ruling is a major blow to Trump’s key defense thus far in the federal election subversion case brought against him by special counsel Jack Smith.
Trump faces four counts from the case, including conspiring to defraud the United States and to obstruct an official proceeding, and he has pleaded not guilty, the CNN reports.
The appeals court has set up a very fast schedule for Trump to ask Supreme Court to block the immunity ruling, giving him until Monday to file an emergency stay request with the court.
According to the CNN, If Trump did not appeal the ruling, the case would be sent back to the trial-level court in Washington, DC, as soon as next week for his trial to continue.
According to the judges, “We cannot accept former President Trump’s claim that a President has unbounded authority to commit crimes that would neutralize the most fundamental check on executive power — the recognition and implementation of election results. Nor can we sanction his apparent contention that the Executive has carte blanche to violate the rights of individual citizens to vote and to have their votes count.”
The judges added: “We cannot accept that the office of the Presidency places its former occupants above the law for all time thereafter. Careful evaluation of these concerns leads us to conclude that there is no functional justification for immunizing former Presidents from federal prosecution in general or for immunizing former President Trump from the specific charges in the Indictment.”
The three-judge appeals court panel that issued the ruling Tuesday includes two judges, J. Michelle Childs and Florence Pan, who were appointed by Joe Biden and one, Karen LeCraft Henderson, who was appointed by George H.W. Bush.