Former President Donald Trump filed a request with the Supreme Court on Monday. He seeks to halt a lower-court decision that would allow his criminal election subversion case in Washington, D.C., to proceed. In his appeal, Trump reiterated his long-standing argument that he is immune from prosecution.
“Without immunity from criminal prosecution, the Presidency as we know it will cease to exist,” Trump’s lawyers claimed in the filing, arguing that if presidents can be charged for actions in office, “such prosecutions will recur and become increasingly common, ushering in destructive cycles of recrimination.”
Last week, a three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit dismissed Trump’s assertion of immunity from prosecution. In their ruling, the panel stated, “we cannot accept that the office of the Presidency places its former occupants above the law for all time thereafter.”
Trump’s legal team has requested the Supreme Court to intervene by halting the ruling and maintaining a pause on the D.C. case while they seek a full review from the appeals court. However, the appeals court has ruled that trial proceedings in D.C. may proceed later this month without further delay.
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They also contended that proceeding with a trial would impede his ability to campaign, thereby infringing upon the First Amendment rights of American voters. They argued that such actions could affect voters’ perceptions, regardless of their support for Trump, and could potentially cast a shadow of partisanship over the federal courts.
The Washington Post suggests that Chief Justice John Roberts will probably seek a prompt response from special counsel Jack Smith’s prosecutors. This will be before the Supreme Court decides on Trump’s request.
The court has the option to deny Trump’s request. Thereby upholding the lower-court ruling, which would permit the trial proceedings to continue. A minimum of five out of nine justices must agree to maintain the D.C. Circuit ruling on hold. Additionally, it only requires four justices to agree to review a case.
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Former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann expressed his lack of enthusiasm for Trump’s filing, particularly the opening line. The filing begins with the phrase, “This application is ‘déjà vu all over again.'” This references a line from New York Yankees legend Yogi Berra.
Weissmann remarked on MSNBC that if the intention was to be sarcastic, they might as well have cited Yogi Bear. He finds the choice of reference bizarre for an application to the Supreme Court.
Weissmann pointed out that during court proceedings, Trump’s attorneys previously argued that the president couldn’t be prosecuted even if he had someone killed. Reflecting on this, Weissmann described the opening sentence of Trump’s filing as “really bizarre” and suggested it showed a lack of sensitivity to the seriousness of the matter at hand.
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Former Trump White House attorney Ty Cobb, who worked for Trump during the Mueller probe, expressed his opinion that Trump’s filing is “pretty weak.” He highlighted that the arguments presented in the filing were previously rejected and criticized during the lower court proceedings.
Cobb doubted the Supreme Court would find these arguments compelling. He suggested that the Supreme Court might either grant or deny the stay; if granted, they would likely expedite consideration of the case.
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