‘A denial of criminal immunity would incapacitate every future president with de facto blackmail and extortion while in office,’ Trump’s lawyers argueDonald Trump’s lawyers have urged the US supreme court to dismiss a case charging him with conspiring to overturn the 2020 election results.
In a brief filed on Tuesday, Mr Trump’s lawyers repeated many of the same arguments that judges have already turned aside, asserting that a 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”.
US district judge Tanya Chutkan, who is presiding over the case, and a three-judge federal appeals panel in Washington have both agreed with Mr Smith, but the case – once scheduled for trial on March 4th – has been effectively frozen for months as the appeal continues to wind through the courts.