Chief Justice John Roberts has requested that the Justice Department respond to former President Donald Trump's attempt to assert presidential immunity in his ongoing Jan. 6-related case in D.C. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit had just rejected President Trump's attempt to overturn Judge Tanya Chutkan's refusal to dismiss DOJ's prosecution based on presidential immunity.
President Trump criticized the appellate court in his Feb. 12 filing, arguing that it provided a tight timeline for asking the Supreme Court for relief before requiring Judge Chutkan to resume her pre-trial proceedings.
As President Trump's brief noted, Special Counsel Jack Smith had requested the Supreme Court skip appellate proceedings and fast-track the issue, stating that "Only" the Supreme Court could "Definitively resolve" President Trump's claims to immunity.
President Trump is asking for the Supreme Court to halt the appellate decision because it incorrectly ruled that presidential immunity didn't apply to Mr. Smith's prosecution of him.
Presidential immunity is a relatively ambiguous area of law, but the Supreme Court held in Nixon v. Fitzgerald that the president had "Absolute immunity" from civil liability that extended to the "Outer perimeter" of his official duties.
"Former President Trump's claimed immunity would have us extend the framework for Presidential civil immunity to criminal cases and decide for the first time that a former President is categorically immune from federal criminal prosecution for any act conceivably within the outer perimeter of his executive responsibility," the judges' opinion read. Meanwhile, President Trump maintained that Mr. Smith's indictment targeted his official acts as president and that the Constitution afforded presidents' discretionary decisions special protection from review by courts.
In requesting the Supreme Court's intervention, President Trump's brief noted that his "Claim that Presidents have absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for their official acts presents a novel, complex, and momentous question that warrants careful consideration on appeal."
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