He hoped to get out of it by pleading presidential immunity. On Tuesday, a federal appeals court dealt a major setback to Donald Trump by unanimously declaring that the ex-president could indeed be prosecuted for conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 electoral vote, won by the Democrat Joe Biden, during an attempted insurrection launched against the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
The three judges of the Washington court thus confirmed the decision which, at first instance last December, had established that the populist was not protected from criminal prosecution for acts which, according to him, fell within his functions as president.
In the minutes following the unveiling of this decision, the former president indicated through a spokesperson his intention to take his case to the Supreme Court to obtain a review. Conservatives have a 6-3 supermajority on the nation’s highest court.
“If immunity is not granted to a president, any president who leaves office will be immediately prosecuted by the opposing party,” the populist shouted in capital letters on Monday evening on his social network. Without complete immunity, a President of the United States could not function properly. »
Donald Trump was criminally charged by Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith with conspiring to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 victory on January 6, 2021, and committing fraud in an attempt to remain in power. against the will of the ballot box.
In a 57-page document, the Court of Appeal for the District of Columbia said it “balanced the interest claimed by former President Trump in immunity against the vital public interest in a (judicial) procedure which must continue.” The judges added that “for the purposes of this criminal case, former President Trump became Citizen Trump, with the same protections as any other defendant.” Any executive immunity that might have protected him when he was president in office no longer protects him from these prosecutions.”
The court challenges Trump’s notion that “a president has unlimited power to commit crimes that would negate the most fundamental control of executive power: the recognition and implementation of election results.” “We also cannot agree with his assertion that the executive has carte blanche to violate the voting rights of citizens,” the judges wrote in their decision.
“We cannot accept that the office of the presidency places its former occupants above the law forever. »
“Absurd” arguments
During the hearing, a group of jurists, several of whom served under Republican governments, described the arguments put forward by the ex-president’s lawyers as “absurd”. “I think it is paradoxical to say that his constitutional duty to ensure that the laws are faithfully executed allows him to violate criminal laws,” declared a former judge of a federal appeals court in early January, Karen L. Henderson.
Justice Department lawyer James Pearce argued for his part that the accusations against Donald Trump distinguish him from any other occupant of the White House. “Never in the past have there been allegations that a sitting president, with the help of citizens and using the levers of power, sought to fundamentally overthrow the Democratic Republic and the electoral system” , he said.
Faced with 91 charges in four separate criminal cases, while leading the race for the Republican nomination for the next presidential election, Donald Trump is increasing legal efforts in order to delay the start of his numerous trials. The strategy bore fruit last week, with Judge Tanya Chutkan’s announcement on Friday to postpone the start of the populist’s trial for plotting to overturn the 2020 vote to a “later date”, pending that justice does not rule on the question of immunity. The thing was planned for March 4, but it could face a postponement of several weeks or months, pending a decision from the Supreme Court on this point of law.
Donald Trump’s lawyers claim “absolute immunity” for the actions taken by the populist while he was in the White House, invoking Supreme Court case law dating from 1982 and concerning civil proceedings launched against the former -President Richard Nixon, in the wake of Watergate and the fall of this other Republican.
The ex-president’s defense team also believes that his client cannot be tried in this case since he was acquitted by Congress in the impeachment trial carried out against him after the assault on the Capitol during which his Supporters attempted to prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s victory. Ironically, elected Republicans, including Mitch McConnell, then leader of their majority in the Senate, justified the acquittal by asserting that the sanction for his actions should come from the criminal justice system rather than Congress. The vote on his dismissal was held once the populist had left the White House, without having conceded victory to his opponent.
Donald Trump is also pleading for immunity to avoid his trial in Georgia where the state’s courts are criminally accusing him of having sought to steal the 2020 elections, by having, among other things, false voters appear to fraudulently pass the result in his favor.
With Agence France-Presse
