Former President Donald Trump has claimed he has presidential immunity as he undergoes legal troubles brought forth by radical left prosecutors over the 2020 presidential election, but a recent ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit dismisses the former president’s claims.
Trump has said presidential immunity protects him from prosecution over events during his tenure in the White House. Such immunity was declared nonexistent by the federal appeals court.
In its opinion, the three-judge panel said it was upholding a decision made by a lower court regarding Trump’s presidential immunity.
“For the purpose of this criminal case, former President Trump has become citizen Trump, with all of the defenses of any other criminal defendant. But any executive immunity that may have protected him while he served as President no longer protects him against this prosecution,” the court wrote.
The court argued that Trump’s view of presidential immunity “would collapse our system of separated powers by placing the president beyond the reach of all three branches.”
“Presidential immunity against federal indictment would mean that, as to the president, the Congress could not legislate, the executive could not prosecute and the judiciary could not review. We cannot accept that the office of the presidency place its former occupants above the law for all time thereafter,” the court added.
Trump will likely appeal the court’s decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The former president is currently involved in a case brought forth by Special Counsel Jack Smith, charging Trump with trying to “overturn” the 2020 election by inciting an “insurrection” on Jan. 6, 2021.
Try to make sense of the the Democrat DC court's ruling on presidential immunity
"For the purpose of this criminal case, former President Trump has become citizen Trump"
Trump *was* President on January 6th
They simply threw the entire Constitution, and the truth, out the… pic.twitter.com/cv7oe7UHIj
— Jack Poso 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) February 6, 2024
Trump has been indicted four times in different states. The former president was first indicted in New York by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg for allegedly falsifying business records. He was later prosecuted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), who raided his Mar-a-Lago residence in West Palm Beach, Florida, in search of classified documents.
Alongside Smith’s 2020 election interference charge against Trump in Washington, D.C., the former president also faces an indictment by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who alleges that Trump tried to “overturn” the 2020 election in Georgia.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges he’s facing in the four cases.
