A US APPEALS court has ruled that Donald Trump is not immune from prosecution as a former president and can face prosecution on charges of trying to overturn the 2020 election.
The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said the claim that Trump was immune from criminal liability for actions he took as president was “unsupported by precedent, history or the text and structure of the Constitution.”
The ruling sets the stage for the former US president to make additional appeals that could reach the US Supreme Court.
In its ruling, the Court of Appeals said it rejected three separate arguments for immunity made by Trump’s lawyers “both as a categorical defense to federal criminal prosecutions of former Presidents and as applied to this case in particular”.
“We conclude that the interest in criminal accountability, held by both the public and the executive branch, outweighs the potential risks of chilling presidential action and permitting vexatious litigation,” the judges wrote.
Trump, who was impeached twice by the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives while in office but acquitted both times thanks to Republicans in the Senate, is scheduled to go on trial on 4 March on charges of conspiring to overturn the 2020 election, which was won by Joe Biden.
The Supreme Court has held that presidents are immune from civil liability for official acts, and Trump’s lawyers have for months argued that that protection should be extended to criminal prosecution as well.
US District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is presiding over the case, rejected Trump’s arguments in a 1 December opinion that said the office of the president “does not confer a lifelong ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ pass”.
Trump’s lawyers then appealed to the DC appeals court, but special counsel Jack Smith asked the Supreme Court to weigh in first, in hopes of securing a fast and definitive ruling and preserving the 4 March trial date.
The high court declined the request, leaving the matter with the appeals court.
Last month, the judges made clear their skepticism of Trump’s claims during arguments, when they peppered his lawyer with tough questions and posed a series of extreme hypotheticals as a way to test his legal theory of immunity – including whether a president who directed navy commandos to assassinate a political rival could be prosecuted.
Trump’s lawyer, John Sauer, answered yes – but only if a president had first been impeached and convicted by Congress. That view was in keeping with the team’s position that the Constitution did not permit the prosecution of ex-presidents who had been impeached but then acquitted, like Mr Trump.
The case in Washington is one of four criminal prosecutions Trump faces as he seeks to reclaim the White House this year.
With reporting from Press Association
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