WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump can be charged with conspiring to overturn the 2020 election, a three-judge federal appeals court panel ruled Tuesday, rejecting Trump’s argument that he was immune from criminal prosecution for any alleged actions during his presidential term.
IN unanimous opinionpanel of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia negative Trump’s motion to dismiss federal charges accusing him of lying and encouraging supporters who committed violence on January 6, 2021.
Trump and his lawyers argued the case should be dismissed because Trump was acting within his official duties as president and allowing the president to sue would have disastrous consequences.
The court found that these arguments “are not supported by precedent, history, or the text and structure of the Constitution.”
The stakes in the dispute were exceptionally high, they wrote, because of the nature of the allegations against Trump, which accuse the former president of attempting to undermine a fundamental principle of American democracy.
“We cannot accept former President Trump’s contention that the president has unfettered powers to commit crimes that would neutralize the most basic check on the executive branch — the recognition and implementation of election results,” they wrote.
A Trump campaign spokesman said Tuesday that the former president will appeal the verdict, which is likely to further delay the trial of Trump, who will continue his campaign as a frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination.
“President Trump respectfully disagrees with the D.C. Circuit’s decision and will appeal it to protect the presidency and the Constitution,” campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said. He did not specify whether the appeal would go to the U.S. Supreme Court or the full district court.
DC Circuit Panel Set an appointment for Monday for notice of cancellation.
The jury was composed of judges appointed by the presidents of both parties.
Republican former President George H. W. Bush appointed Karen LeCraft Henderson. Florence Y. Pan and J. Michelle Childs were appointed by President Joe Biden, a Democrat who is expected to face Trump in the November presidential election.
Nixon’s pardon cited
The judges wrote that it has long been established that former presidents are subject to criminal liability.
President Gerald Ford pardoned his predecessor, Richard Nixon, in a move judges said was intended to protect Nixon from criminal prosecution in connection with the Watergate scandal.
This is also consistent with the Constitution, they wrote.
“It would be a striking paradox if the president, who alone has the constitutional duty to ‘take care that the laws be faithfully executed,’ were the only official who could violate those laws with impunity,” they wrote, quoting the Constitution.
They rejected Trump’s argument that allowing criminal prosecutions would open the door to harassment of former presidents by the opposing political party, noting that this has not happened to the 44 presidents who held office before Trump.
“We conclude that the interest in criminal accountability, on the part of both the public and the executive branch, outweighs the potential risk of hampering the President’s actions and enabling burdensome litigation,” they wrote.
And in Trump’s case, the nature of the allegations — which would constitute an “unprecedented attack on the structure of our government” — is all the more reason to allow criminal prosecution, the judges wrote.
AND an indictment consisting of four charges Last year he accused Trump of conspiracy to overthrow 2020 presidential election.
The indictment accuses Trump of working with a group of associates to create false slates of electors, lying to the public about nonexistent election fraud and encouraging supporters to obstruct the certification of the election during the violent attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Accepting Trump’s immunity argument would give presidents ‘call blanche to violate the rights of individual citizens to vote and have their votes counted’
They argued that Trump’s claim to blanket immunity would put the president beyond the reach of all three branches of government.
“We cannot accept that the office of the president will place its former representatives above the law forever,” they wrote.
Henderson, Pan and Childs expressed skepticism about executive immunity claims during early January oral arguments in Trump’s presence in a Washington courtroom.
Notably during tough questioning, Trump attorney D. John Sauer appeared to defend the thesis that presidents can be immune from criminal punishment, even for ordering the assassination of political rivals.
Tuesday’s appeals court decision does not in any way resolve the validity of federal election interference charges against Trump.
Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, an organization that advocates for government accountability, called the case “the most significant criminal case brought against former President Trump.”
Further appeals
The D.C. District Court order set a Monday deadline for filing a notice of appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court. The notice would maintain a pretrial freeze that has been in place since Trump appealed a ruling on his immunity claims in December.
The court is not required to hear the appeal, but pursuing the appellate options will assist Trump prolong the case, potentially beyond Election Day. Trump and his legal team have not explicitly said that delaying the case as long as possible is part of their strategy, but they have seized opportunities to drag out the proceedings.
Trump could also appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, but that court rarely grants such requests, and the panel said Tuesday that simply seeking a up-to-date hearing would not delay the trial.
The Supreme Court is “unlikely” to hear the appeal, according to legal experts Norman L. Eisen, Matthew A. Seligman and Joshua Kolb. I wrote an outline potential timelines on Just Security, a website dedicated to analyzing foreign policy, democracy, and security, published January 9.
Trump raised the immunity issue in the trial court where he faces federal charges related to the 2021 Capitol attack, arguing that he cannot be prosecuted for the actions charged in the indictment because he was acting within his official duties as president to combat election fraud and had already been acquitted in an impeachment trial.
U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan negative those claims, Trump’s decision, which he appealed to the D.C. Circuit. On Friday, Chutkan also officially adjourned his trialwhich is scheduled to start on March 4.
Hours before the three-judge panel issued its ruling, Trump posted the following in all caps on his online platform Truth Social: “IF IMMUNITY IS NOT GRANTED TO THE PRESIDENT, ANY PRESIDENT WHO LEAVES OFFICE WILL IMMEDIATELY BE IMPEACHED BY THE OPPOSING PARTY.”
“WITHOUT COMPLETE IMMUNITY, THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES COULD NOT FUNCTION PROPERLY!” he wrote.
The reaction is heating up
On Tuesday, several anti-Trump groups celebrated Trump’s decision, while Republicans on Capitol Hill launched a up-to-date effort to defend the former president by welcoming a House resolution.
American Oversight, the watchdog group that filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case, released a statement praising the appellate judges for “strongly rejecting (Trump’s) contention that the president can commit crimes and avoid prosecution without impeachment and conviction by Congress.”
“We appreciate the Court’s careful consideration of our argument that Trump’s appeal was premature. By fully addressing the argument, the Court removed the risk that this issue could be raised for the first time on subsequent appeals, including to the Supreme Court, causing even greater delay. Today’s important ruling reaffirms a fundamental principle of our democracy — no one is above the law,” continued Heather Sawyer, executive director of American Oversight.
Wertheimer noted that Trump has used delaying tactics throughout his career and that “his actions in this case are part of a common strategy of his.”
“Trump’s goal is to delay this criminal trial until after the 2024 presidential election, when, if he wins, he can order his new attorney general to drop the case,” he wrote.
He appealed to the Supreme Court to quickly consider the next appeal.
The Defend Democracy Project, an advocacy group focused on election integrity, said the appeals court ruling “upheld the Constitution and common sense. Trump can and will be tried on criminal charges.”
“A fundamental principle of American democracy is that the law applies to everyone, even the president. Anyone who tries to take away our freedom to choose our own leaders must be held accountable,” the organization said in a statement after the ruling.
During a previously scheduled press conference on Tuesday, January 6, 2021, at which a resolution exempting Trump from all action was announced, far-right Republicans in the House of Representatives condemned any audit of the former president.
Lauren Boebert of Colorado said the several pending criminal cases against Trump amounted to a “witch hunt.”
“This is absolutely unprecedented, and the woke masses, fake news and leftist government officials who are complicit in this extortion should be ashamed of themselves. All of the false cases against President Trump are, quite simply, election interference (in the 2024 election),” said Boebert, who signed the resolution under the chairmanship of Florida Republican Matt Gaetz.
Trump also faces criminal charges in three other cases.
The Georgia election interference charges are similar to the federal charges. State charges in New York accuse him of falsifying business records by making unauthorized hush payments from campaign accounts. And a federal grand jury in Florida indicted him for mishandling secret documents.
Neither case has yet to reach the trial phase as Trump continues to build his position toward a third Republican presidential nomination.
Update: This article was updated on February 6, 2024 at 4:00 p.m. with additional details.
