Appeals court clips Trump’s immunity bid

WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — Donald Trump has no immunity from prosecution as a former president and can be tried on charges of conspiring to overturn the 2020 election, a federal appeals court said Tuesday in a landmark ruling.

A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said Trump’s claim that he is immune from criminal liability for actions he took while in the White House is “unsupported by precedent, history or the text and structure of the Constitution.”

“Former President Trump’s stance would collapse our system of separated powers by placing the President beyond the reach of all three Branches,” the judges said in a unanimous opinion. “We cannot accept that the office of the Presidency places its former occupants above the law for all time thereafter.”

The ruling is a major legal setback for Trump, 77, the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination and the first ex-president to be criminally indicted, and a spokesperson said he plans to file another appeal.

Trump, in a post on his Truth Social platform, slammed the ruling and said it means “a President will be afraid to act for fear of the opposite Party’s Vicious Retribution after leaving Office.”

“A President of the United States must have Full Immunity in order to properly function and do what has to be done for the good of our Country,” he said. “A nation-destroying ruling like this cannot be allowed to stand.”

The appeals court put the immunity ruling on hold until Monday to give Trump the opportunity to appeal to the US Supreme Court, which can decide whether to take the case or allow the lower court’s ruling to stand.

Trump had been set to go on trial in Washington on 4 March on charges of conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election won by Democrat Joe Biden.

But District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is presiding over the case, was forced to postpone it pending a ruling by the appeals court on the immunity claim, which she had rejected in December.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court is already scheduled to hear another important election-related case this week.