A federal appeals court in Washington has ruled that Donald Trump is not immune from prosecution in the federal election subversion case against him, dealing the former president a major blow in one of the four criminal trials he is facing.
The three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit unanimously rejected the former president's claims of absolute immunity for conduct undertaken while in office, addressing a novel question that has never been tested. The trial was set to begin early next month, but U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing the case, pushed back the start date last week as Trump appealed the case.
“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 judges wrote in their 57-page ruling. “But any executive immunity that may have protected him while he served as president no longer protects him against this prosecution.”
"Presidential immunity against federal indictment would mean that, as to the President, the Congress could not legislate, the Executive could not prosecute and the Judiciary could not review," they wrote. "We cannot accept that the office of the Presidency places its former occupants above the law for all time thereafter."
"We cannot accept former President Trump’s claim that a President has unbounded authority to commit crimes that would neutralize the most fundamental check on executive power — the recognition and implementation of election results," they wrote. "Nor can we sanction his apparent contention that the Executive has carte blanche to violate the rights of individual citizens to vote and to have their votes count."
The panel upheld Judge Chutkan's initial ruling from last year on the question of immunity, in which she wrote that the office of the president "does not confer a lifelong ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ pass."
The three-judge panel consisted of Karen LeCraft Henderson, appointed to the bench by George H.W. Bush, a Republican, and two appointees of Biden, a Democrat: J. Michelle Childs and Florence Pan.
The decision deals a blow to Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, who has been seeking to delay the criminal cases against him until after November's election. Should Trump defeat President Joe Biden in November, he could pardon himself or appoint a new attorney general who would dismiss the cases against him.
A spokesperson for Trump's reelection campaign vowed that the former president will appeal to the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. The appeals court put its ruling on hold until Feb. 12 so Trump can appeal to the nation's highest court.
The Supreme Court has held the position that presidents are immune from civil liability for acts while in office; Trump's attorneys have argued that those protections should also extend to criminal prosecution, and his alleged efforts to hang on to power after his election loss, including urging then-Vice President Mike Pence to refuse to certify the results during the electoral count on Jan. 6, 2021, were part of the "outer perimeter" of the president's duties. Smith's team has argued that no such immunity exists, and Trump’s actions weren’t part of his official duties.
Trump faces four charges in the case, brought by special counsel Jack Smith, including conspiracy to defraud the United States. He pleaded not guilty and denied any wrongdoing.
Trump faces three other criminal prosecutions, including another case related to alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, that one taking place in Fulton County, Georgia. He was also charged in federal court in Florida with alleged mishandling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate, and a case in New York related to alleged hush money payments made to an adult film star during the 2016 presidential election. He has pleaded not guilty in all of the cases against him.
Spectrum News' Joseph Konig and The Associated Press contributed to this report.