One month ahead of the date the US Supreme Court agreed to hear oral arguments for Donald Trump's claim of absolute immunity from federal prosecution, lawyers for the MAGA hopeful filed a brief with the high court Tuesday asking the justices to rule Trump immune from his January 6 election interference case charges.
During oral argument before the DC Circuit Court of Appeals in January, Trump lawyers argued the former president should even be able to "order assassination, essentially commit murder, and not be prosecuted unless first impeached and convicted."
Still, the Supreme Court agreed to hear further argument for the ex-president's broad immunity claim on April 25.
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"The President cannot function, and the Presidency itself cannot retain its vital independence," Trump lawyers wrote in the brief, "if the President faces criminal prosecution for official acts once he leaves office." The brief continued, "A denial of criminal immunity would incapacitate every future President with de facto blackmail and extortion while in office, and condemn him to years of post-office trauma at the hands of political opponents."
The New York Times notes "legal experts said Mr. Trump was unlikely to prevail but added that how and when the court rejects his arguments will effectively determine whether and when Mr. Trump’s trial, which had been scheduled to start March 4, will proceed."
Many legal experts who criticized the high court for agreeing to hear Trump's immunity claim next month also slammed the arguments made in former president's brief via social media.
Former Federal Bureau Investigation (FBI) counsel and legal analyst Andrew Weissmann wrote, "Trump brief 'A denial of criminal immunity would incapacitate every future President with de facto blackmail and extortion while in office, and condemn him to years of post-office trauma at the hands of political opponents.' It's been working pretty well so far without immunity."
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Counsel on Foreign Relations former senior fellow Laurie Garrett said, "Not surprisingly, the #Trump defense team has turned to #SCOTUS asking the high Court to concur with their opinion that Trump is immune from #Jan6thInsurrection related prosecution. Another 6-to-3 ruling coming?"
Brookings Governance senior fellow Norm Eisen pointed out that in Trump's filing, "The lies literally began w[ith] the very first sentence in the brief that 'no former or current president faced criminal charges for his official acts' [because] 'the president cannot function' if such charges can be brought [.] That's false: The reason no other POTUS faced criminal charges is because none engaged in conduct like that of Trump."
Financial Times associate editor Edward Luce commented, "Law students must be regretting all those years studying originalism, textualism, constructivism etc...Turns out the key is 'make s—t up as you go along' to serve your party."
Democracy Docket founder Marc Elias wrote, "One notable thing about this brief -- it lacks a serious Supreme Court litigator. It remains astounding that Trump is unable to attract top tier conservative legal talent in these criminal cases."
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