“President Trump’s claim that presidents have absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for their official acts presents a novel, complex and momentous question that warrants careful consideration on appeal.”
2024 GOP frontrunner Donald Trump requested that the Supreme Court block a ruling from the US Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia stating that he does not have presidential immunity in the January 6 case against him.
According to the New York Times, the filing stated that "President Trump’s claim that presidents have absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for their official acts presents a novel, complex and momentous question that warrants careful consideration on appeal."
The trial, which was set to begin on March 4 but has been put on hold through the appeals process, could now begin in the middle of the 2024 election campaign or even past the election, which takes place in less than 8 months.
The appeals court judges wrote in the ruling that three separate immunity arguments made by Trump’s team were rejected "both as a categorical defense to federal criminal prosecutions of former Presidents and as applied to this case in particular."
"For the purpose of this criminal case, former President Trump has become citizen Trump, with all of the defenses of any other criminal defendant," the panel wrote.
"But any executive immunity that may have protected him while he served as President no longer protects him against this prosecution."
The Supreme Court in December declined to take up the case at the request of special counsel Jack Smith, who urged the court to rule fast on the case as Trump was moving his appeal through the appeals court.
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