April 9 (UPI) — Special counsel Jake Smith has asked the Supreme Court to reject former President Donald Trump’s claim of absolute immunity from charges of trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
The special counsel made the request in a filing Monday night ahead of the conservative-leaning hearing arguments April 25 on whether the former president is shielded from charges accusing him of committing crimes while in the White House.
Much attention is on the Supreme Court’s decision, as it could have wide-ranging consequences not only to Trump’s election subversion case, but the other criminal indictments he faces.
Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, has claimed he enjoys “absolute immunity” from the four-count indictment filed against him in August. That case accuses him of orchestrating a conspiracy to overturn his presidential election loss through fraud and other means, including by exploiting the violence and chaos caused by his supporters when they assaulted Congress on Jan. 6, 2021.
His argument has been rejected by the courts, but the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case and he has pressed the justices to side with him. His legal team argued last month that the president enjoys “absolute immunity” as he “the president cannot function, and the presidency itself cannot retain its vital independence, if the president faces criminal prosecution for official acts once he leaves office.”
In his filing Monday, Smith rejected Trump’s novel and sweeping claims of immunity, stating no presidential power entitles the president to claim immunity from the charges of fraud, obstruction of official proceedings and the denial of the right to vote.
“The president’s constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed does not entail a general right to violate them,” he said.
He added that history will also side against the president, stating the framers of the Constitution “never endorsed criminal immunity for a former president” and that all presidents have known that they could face potential liability after leaving office.
Smith pointed to the case of former President Richard Nixon’s acceptance of a presidential Pardon in 1974 as proof.
“Since Watergate, the Department of Justice has held the view that a former president may face criminal prosecution, and independent and special counsels have operated from that same understanding,” he said. “Until petitioner’s arguments in this case, so had former presidents.”
He also said federal criminal law applies to the president, rejecting Trump’s stance that unless a criminal statute expressly names the president it does not apply.
That “radical suggestion” is unfounded and would shield the president from virtually all criminal law, including murder, treason and sedition,” he said.
Smith also dismissed Trump’s claim that a president must be impeached by Congress before they can be criminally prosecuted, stating that’s not what the Impeachment Judgement Clause of the Constitution says.
“The effective functioning of the presidency does not require that a former president be immune from accountability for these alleged violations of federal criminal law,” Smith said.
“To the contrary, a bedrock principle of our constitutional order is that no person is about the law — including the president. Nothing in constitutional text, history, precedent or policy considerations supports the absolute immunity that petitioner seeks.”
The Supreme Court is not expected to rule on Trump’s immunity claims until July.
