A US federal appeals court on Tuesday rejected Donald Trump’s request for criminal immunity, reopening the way for his trial in Washington on charges of trying to illegally overturn the results of the 2020 election.
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The big favorite in the Republican primaries, for the November presidential election, is seeking through multiple appeals to postpone his various criminal trials as late as possible, at least after the election.
Donald Trump will appeal the appeal decision, his spokesperson Steven Cheung announced to AFP.
During the debates before the court of appeal on January 9 on his appeal for immunity, he predicted “chaos in the country” if the American justice system did not drop the proceedings against him.
“We weighed the interest claimed by former President Trump in immunity against the vital public interest in allowing this procedure to continue,” explain the three judges of the Court of Appeal in their decision confirming that pronounced at first instance in December.
“For the purposes of this criminal case, former President Trump has become Citizen Trump, with the same protections as any other defendant. But any immunity under the executive power, which could have protected him when he was president in office, no longer protects him against these prosecutions,” they write.
The decision does not, however, include any mention of a resumption of the procedural acts in this case, suspended due to the appeal, and which led the judge who will preside over the proceedings to the trial, initially scheduled for March 4, to announce on Friday the postponement indefinitely.
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Judge Tanya Chutkan indicated that “the court would decide on a new date” if, once the question of immunity was decided, the file returned to its hands.
It was she who rejected his request for immunity in December, considering that no text protected a former president against criminal prosecution.
Donald Trump’s defense claimed “absolute immunity” for his actions committed while he was in the White House. She cited Supreme Court case law from the 1980s regarding civil suits against former President Richard Nixon.
His lawyers also argued that he cannot be tried in this case because of his acquittal during the parliamentary impeachment proceedings against him for the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, during which hundreds of his supporters attempted to prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s victory.
In her decision, Judge Chutkan concluded that the Nixon precedent did not apply to criminal prosecutions, and that impeachment proceedings did not constitute a criminal trial.
“Allowing a president to be prosecuted for his official acts would open a Pandora’s box from which this country may never recover,” Donald Trump’s lawyer, John Sauer, argued before the appeals court.
To one of the judges, Florence Pan, who asked him whether sending special forces to assassinate a political opponent or selling presidential pardons fell within these official acts, the lawyer responded in the affirmative.
“It would be paradoxical to say that his constitutional duty to ensure faithful respect for the laws authorizes him to violate criminal law,” retorted the President of the Court, Karen Lecraft Henderson.
Donald Trump is also being prosecuted by the courts of the state of Georgia (southeast) for related acts of electoral interference, and will also have to answer in federal court for his alleged negligent management of confidential documents after his departure from the White House.