'No absolute immunity': Experts warn Trump is provoking multiple constitutional crises — all at once

09 January 2024

Many of Donald Trump's critics, from Never Trump conservative Charlie Sykes to "Real Time" host Bill Maher, have been warning that the 2024 GOP presidential frontrunner could provoke a constitutional crisis.

Former First Lady Michelle Obama, in a recent interview for the podcast "On Purpose," told host Jay Shetty that she is "terrified about what could possibly happen" in this year's election and warned, "We cannot take this democracy for granted."

In an article published on January 9, the Daily Beast's Jose Pagliery argues that the United States isn't facing one constitutional crisis — it is facing multiple constitutional crises at the same time, and they're already here.

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"The long-feared clash between Donald Trump and the U.S. Constitution is finally here, with several historic legal battles about presidential accountability and his unprecedented lawlessness all careening simultaneously toward the nation's highest court — just as the 2024 primary election season begins," Pagliery explains. "On Tuesday, (January 9), the former president is expected to make an exceedingly rare appearance in D.C. appellate court, where his lawyers will essentially argue he is above the law — untouchable by federal prosecutors over the way he tried to stay in power after losing the 2020 election. Whatever the outcome, the matter is guaranteed to speed its way to the Supreme Court, which will inevitably determine whether Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith can prosecute Trump for election interference at a criminal trial set to start in March."

Pagliery continues, "The similar but separate state racketeering case against Trump in Atlanta also hangs in the balance, depending entirely on whether justices bestow upon Trump — and any president — this new and unfettered power…. Meanwhile, the remarkable decision by election officials in Colorado and Maine to yank Trump off the ballot in 2024 for his failed insurrection will now be reviewed by the Supreme Court, which will entertain lawyers' arguments in Washington on February 8. The highly unusual case will decide whether state bureaucrats can single-handedly employ the 14th Amendment to prohibit Trump from running for office — an untested ploy to avert the perceived threat of Trumpist authoritarianism."

Attorney Norman L. Eisen told the Daily Beast that Trump's immunity-from-prosecution claim "may be the single most important question confronting our democracy this year," adding, "There is no absolute immunity to prosecution."

Michael Waldman, who heads the New York University Law School's Brennan Center for Justice, told the Beast that presidents must be free to make executive decisions on national security matters but stressed that they aren't immune from prosecution for criminal conduct after they leave office.

Waldman argued, "That would be bad for the country if it meant the president couldn't do their job, but always underpinning this idea (of immunity) was that presidents could be prosecuted after leaving office for crimes they committed."

Read the full Daily Beast article at this link (subscription required).

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