Trump appealed lower court’s denial of his request to be shielded from case charging him with attempting to overturn 2020 election The special counsel pursuing federal criminal charges against Donald Trump for his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss filed abrief on Monday urging the justices to reject the former president’s bid for immunity from prosecution on the principle that “no person is above the law”.
“The effective functioning of the presidency does not require that a former president be immune from accountability for these alleged violations of federal criminal law,” Smith wrote. “To the contrary, a bedrock principle of our constitutional order is that no person is above the law including the president.“
He has argued that a former president has “absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for his official acts,” and warned that without such immunity, “the threat of future prosecution and imprisonment would become a political cudgel to influence the most sensitive and controversial presidential decisions”.
Smith’s view was backed on Monday by a group of 19 retired four-star US military officers and other former high-ranking national security officials, including retired army generals Peter Chiarelli and George Casey, former CIA director Michael Hayden and former Navy secretary Ray Mabus. In a friend-of-court brief, they called Trump’s claim of presidential immunity “contrary to the foundational principles of our democracy.
Trump Immunity Prosecution 2020 Election Special Counsel Criminal Charges
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