Joe Biden should be eager to have the U.S. Supreme Court take former President Trump's immunity case. In fact, every president would. After all, criminal actions could undoubtedly be found in opening up the Southern Border to invading hordes, for the calamitous bail-out from Afghanistan, or Biden's shady involvement in approving the FBI raid at Mar-a-Lago as part of a conspiracy to "Get Trump." Former President Obama unconstitutionally murdered two Americans in a drone attack.
In the words of the filing by former President Trump to the Supreme Court: “If the prosecution of a President is upheld, such prosecutions will recur and become increasingly common, ushering in destructive cycles of recrimination." Trump knows about such recrimination all too well.
Trump's 112-page filing arises from special counsel Jack Smith's four-count criminal case against him regarding his January 6 activities, including the notorious use of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act to justify an interference in an official proceeding charge. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan rebuffed Trump's arguments and appeals over the matter. The president's team is asking SCOTUS to take and keep the case without sending it back to lower courts.
Presidents have immunity from civil cases but criminal cases have never been tested.
Democrats have conspired to bring waves of lawsuits across the country to bankrupt and smear Donald Trump before the 2024 election. Trump says special counsel Smith has demanded the courts fast-track this case against Trump to interfere with the 2024 election.
They argued:
In addition, President Trump is the leading candidate for President in the 2024 election. Conducting a months-long criminal trial of President Trump at the height of election season will radically disrupt President Trump’s ability to campaign against President Biden—which appears to be the whole point of the Special Counsel’s persistent demands for expedition. The D.C. Circuit’s order thus threatens immediate irreparable injury to the First Amendment interests of President Trump and tens of millions of American voters, who are entitled to hear President Trump’s campaign message as they decide how to cast their ballots in November.
They're asking the nation's highest court to take the case and put on hold the lower court decisions against him to carefully consider and determine if "Presidents have absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for their official acts" because the question "presents a novel, complex, and momentous question that warrants careful consideration on appeal."
Indeed, the filing added:
This threat will hang like a millstone around every future President’s neck, distorting Presidential decision making, undermining the President’s independence, and clouding the President’s ability “‘to deal fearlessly and impartially with’ the duties of his office.”
Trump's attorneys asked the Supreme Court to resolve two questions: if presidential immunity extends to criminal charges and if his impeachment and acquittal added to Smith's case constitutes double jeopardy.
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The lower D.C. Circuit Court ruled against Trump, with one of the judges taking verbatim a hypothetical situation directly from the left talking points suggesting that if the president ordered SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a political rival, he might not be criminally liable. That three-judge panel ruled against Trump, saying that "Any executive immunity that may have protected him while he served as President no longer protects him against this prosecution."
If the Supreme Court doesn't rule on Trump's side, in the words of the former president's filing, "Without immunity from criminal prosecution, the Presidency as we know it will cease to exist."
Every president will be mired in court for every real or imagined misstep. It would look a lot like what former President Trump is dealing with now.
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