US special investigator Jack Smith wants to have the US Supreme Court clarify whether Donald Trump may enjoy immunity. Specifically, it is about the events during the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021 and the lawsuit against him for election interference. It is of “urgent public importance” that the Supreme Court decide on Trump’s claimed immunity, Smith said in his motion.
Trial against Donald Trump starts in March
According to current plans, the trial in a federal court in Washington against Trump for attempted election manipulation is scheduled to begin on March 4th. Smith said in his motion that if the court rejects Trump’s claim of immunity, it should “move forward as expeditiously as possible” with the trial.
Smith asked the Supreme Court to make the issue of Trump’s immunity a priority. He emphasized that the case concerns “a fundamental question at the core of our democracy.” It’s about whether a former president is “absolutely immune” from prosecution by the federal judiciary for crimes he committed while in office.
“No one is above the law”
The special investigator has taken a clear position on this issue: “No one in this country, not even the president, is above the law,” his team wrote to federal judge Tanya Chutkan in October. Trump “is subject to federal criminal laws like more than 330 million other Americans.”
Chutkan shares the special counsel’s reasoning and dismissed the request from Trump’s lawyers on December 1. Trump’s four years as president “have not given him the divine right of kings to avoid the criminal liability to which his fellow citizens are subject,” she found.
After the November 2020 election, Republican Trump refused to acknowledge his defeat against Democrat Joe Biden. Rather, he made allegations of massive electoral fraud, which have often been refuted. Trump’s campaign against his election defeat culminated in the attack on the congressional seat in Washington by radical supporters of the elected incumbent on January 6, 2021.
