by A federal appeals court on Tuesday rejected former President Donald J. Trump’s claim that he had immunity from prosecution from charges of conspiring to subvert the results of the 2020 election, ruling that he must go to trial on a criminal indictment accusing him of try to overturn his loss to President Biden.
The unanimous ruling, by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, handed Trump a significant defeat. But it was unlikely to be the final word on his executive immunity claims: Trump, who is on track to secure the Republican presidential nomination, is expected to continue his appeal to the Supreme Court.
Still, the panel’s 57-page ruling marked an important moment in American jurisprudence, answering a question that had never been addressed by an appeals court: Can former presidents escape being held liable by the criminal justice system for Things they did while in office?
The question is novel because no former president until Trump had been indicted, so there was never an opportunity for a defendant to raise (and courts to consider) the broad executive immunity claim he raised.
The panel, made up of two Democratic-appointed judges and one Republican appointee, said in its decision that despite the privileges of the office he once held, Trump was subject to federal criminal law like any other American.
“For the purposes of this criminal case, former President Trump has become a Trump citizen, with all the defenses of any other criminal defendant,” the panel wrote. “But any executive immunity that may have protected him while he served as president no longer protects him against this prosecution.”
All three justices called Trump’s immunity claims a danger to the nation’s constitutional system.
“At its core, former President Trump’s stance would collapse our system of separated powers by placing the president beyond the reach of all three branches,” they wrote. “Presidential immunity from federal prosecution would mean that, as far as the president is concerned, Congress could not legislate, the executive could not prosecute, and the judiciary could not review. “We cannot accept that the office of presidency places its former occupants above the law forever.”
A spokesman for Jack Smith, the special counsel who brought the case against Trump, declined to comment on the decision.
Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said the former president “respectfully disagrees” with the decision and would appeal it.
“If a president is not granted immunity, any future president who leaves office will immediately be impeached by the opposing party,” Cheung said. “Without full immunity, a president of the United States would not be able to function properly.”
The panel’s ruling came nearly a month after hearing arguments on the issue of immunity from Trump’s legal team and prosecutors working for Smith. While the decision was quick by the standards of a normal appeal, what happens next will likely be more important in determining not only when a trial on the electoral subversion charges will take place, but also the timing of the other three trials. Trump penalties. .
In addition to the federal indictment accusing him of trying to overturn his 2020 election loss, he faces similar charges brought by a district attorney in Georgia. In a footnote, the panel emphasized that its decision did not address the separate question of whether state prosecutors could charge a former president for official actions.
Smith, the special prosecutor appointed to oversee federal prosecutions, also filed a case in Florida accusing Trump of mishandling highly sensitive classified documents after leaving office and obstructing efforts to recover them. And Trump is scheduled to stand trial next month in Manhattan on charges related to hush payments from him to a porn star during the 2016 campaign.
When Trump first attempted to have the federal election case dismissed on immunity grounds, it was an attempt to expand the protections the Supreme Court had already granted to sitting and former presidents against civil lawsuits related to their official actions. .
While they did not accept that Trump’s actions were official (the panel noted that presidents have no constitutionally prescribed role in counting electoral college votes), the justices rejected his arguments about being immune from criminal charges.
“We cannot accept former President Trump’s assertion that a president has unlimited authority to commit crimes that would neutralize the most fundamental control of the executive branch: the recognition and implementation of election results,” the justices wrote. “Nor can we approve of his apparent assertion that the executive has carte blanche to violate the rights of individual citizens to vote and to have his votes count.”
The unsigned decision was issued by the three judges: Karen L. Henderson, an appointee of former President George HW Bush, and two appointees of President Biden, Judges Florence Y. Pan and J. Michelle Childs.
During arguments last month, the justices expressed particular concern after Trump’s lawyer argued that a former president could avoid criminal prosecution even for ordering SEAL Team 6, an elite group of Navy commandos, to assassinate one of his political rivals unless the Senate had convicted him for the first time in an impeachment trial.
The panel rejected arguments by Trump’s legal team about the need for an impeachment conviction before filing criminal charges.
And in another important part of their decision, the three appeals judges also limited Trump’s ability to use new appeals to waste more time and delay the electoral process, a strategy that the former president has followed since the indictment against him was filed. . filed in August in U.S. District Court in Washington.
The panel said Trump had until Monday to ask the Supreme Court to get involved in the case and continue with a stay of all underlying proceedings. The trial judge initially stayed the case in December.
But the panel imposed a rule designed to deter Trump from bringing an interim challenge to the full appeals court. He said that if Trump were to take that route, trial preparations could begin again after February 12.
If the issue reaches the Supreme Court, the justices will first have to decide whether to take the case or reject it and allow the appeals court ruling against Trump to stand.
If they refuse to hear the matter, the case will be returned directly to the trial judge, Tanya S. Chutkan. She canceled her initial March 4 trial date last week, but otherwise she has shown every sign of wanting to move the charges toward trial as quickly as possible.
If the Supreme Court takes up the case, however, the crucial question will be how quickly the justices will act in requesting briefs and scheduling arguments. If they act quickly to hear the case and issue a decision, there remains the possibility of a trial on the election charges before the November general election.
But if the judges take their time, the trial may be delayed until after the election. If that happened and Trump won, he would be in a position to ask his Justice Department to dismiss the case or even seek a pardon.
Although Trump put three of the justices on the bench, the Supreme Court has not shown much interest in delving into issues related to his efforts to change the mechanics of American democracy.
But the question of how to handle Trump’s immunity claim is in the Supreme Court’s way as it prepares for arguments Thursday on another consequential issue involving the former president: whether he can be disqualified from the ballot for having participated in an event. of insurrection encouraging his followers to storm the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
