Donald Trump, on Friday, sought to leverage the US Supreme Court's recent decision granting broad immunity to former presidents. He requested that the federal judge overseeing his criminal case for retaining classified documents eliminate any charges deemed “official” acts that are immune from prosecution.
The Supreme Court ruled this week that former presidents have some immunity from criminal prosecution for certain conduct during their term, meaning evidence of such acts cannot be used in a trial, even if they are not part of the charges.
The ruling established three categories of criminal accountability for former presidents: core presidential functions with absolute immunity, official acts of the presidency with presumptive immunity, and unofficial acts with no immunity.
Trump’s lawyers did not specify which parts of the indictment they considered official and thus immune. However, if US District Judge Aileen Cannon agrees to review the charges, it could delay the case by months.
This filing highlighted the extensive implications of the Supreme Court’s decision, impacting Trump’s documents case in Florida, despite the ruling originating from a pre-trial appeal in his 2020 election subversion case in Washington. It also demonstrated Trump’s strategy to weaken the substance of the cases against him.
The 10-page filing from Trump’s lawyers requested permission from Cannon to submit new briefs, arguing the immunity decision undermined prosecutors' stance that he had no immunity and exposed the politically-motivated nature of their claim that the motion was "frivolous."
Additionally, Trump’s filing asked Cannon to pause all other proceedings in the case until she determined whether Special Counsel Jack Smith and his prosecution team were authorized to bring the case.
In a recent motion to dismiss, Trump’s lawyers argued that Smith’s appointment was improper since he was not named by the president or approved by the Senate as other federal officers are. They contended that Attorney General Merrick Garland lacked the legal authority to appoint him independently.
This motion seemed likely to be denied after a recent federal court hearing in Fort Pierce, Florida, where prosecutors asserted that Garland had the authority to appoint “inferior officers” like special counsels under the US Constitution’s appointments clause.
However, Justice Clarence Thomas, in the Supreme Court’s decision, gave new weight to this argument. “If this unprecedented prosecution is to proceed, the lower courts should thus answer these essential questions concerning the special counsel’s appointment,” Thomas wrote, specifically referring to the 2020 election case.
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