WASHINGTON (CN) — Hoping to pause prosecution on election interference charges, former President Donald Trump has appealed a ruling that rejected his presidential immunity defense.
On Dec. 1, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan ruled that former presidents don’t get a lifelong “get-out-of-jail-free” pass and have no special protections from federal criminal liability. Trump indicated in a filing on Thursday that he would challenge that ruling at the D.C. Circuit. He also asked the court to stop all proceedings while he appeals Chutkan’s ruling.
The D.C. Circuit has already weighed in on the issue of presidential immunity. Coinciding with Chutkan’s ruling on Trump’s immunity in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s case, the appeal court said a group of Democratic lawmakers and police officers could move forward with their case against the former president despite his immunity claim.
Trump thinks that ruling helps his appeal of Chutkan’s ruling because it shows these issues must be resolved prior to any other ruling.
“The court of appeals held that factual questions related to the determination of presidential immunity must be resolved ‘before any merits-related discovery,’” Todd Blanche, a New York attorney representing the former president, wrote. “That is because ‘[o]fficial immunity, including the president’s official act immunity, is ‘immunity from suit rather than a mere defense to liability.’"
Special Counsel Jack Smith has brought four criminal counts against Trump in D.C. related his his election interference efforts that led to the Jan. 6 insurrection. Trump was charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, outright obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy against rights.
As with the 87 other criminal counts the former president faces elsewhere in the country, Trump pleaded not guilty to the D.C. charges.
Trump’s presidential immunity claims followed his failed efforts to force Chutkan to recuse from his case. His legal arguments rest on the Supreme Court’s ruling in Nixon v. Fitzgerald, which found that former President Richard Nixon had immunity from a civil suit related to his official duties. Trump’s reading of Fitzgerald would expand that liability to criminal charges.
Aside from his immunity claims, Trump says he was already put on trial for his role in the insurrection, referring to the impeachment proceedings that followed. He says this makes the charges against him void because of double jeopardy.
This argument was also dismissed by Chutkan. She said the impeachment proceedings concerned removal from office, whereas Smith’s charges are criminal penalties.
“Defendant’s 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,” Chutkan wrote in her ruling. "'No man in this country,’ not even the former president, ‘is so high that he is above the law.’”
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