Posted on 04/25/2024 5:12:24 AM PDT by CFW
In the final argument scheduled for its 2023-2024 term, the Supreme Court will hear argument on Thursday in former President Donald Trump’s historic bid for criminal immunity. The question before the justices is whether Trump can be tried on criminal charges that he conspired to overturn the results of the 2020 election. The court’s answer will determine not only whether Trump’s trial in Washington, D.C., before U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, originally scheduled for March 4 but now on hold, can go forward, but also whether the former president’s trials in Florida and Georgia can proceed.
Jury selection is currently underway in a Manhattan courtroom, where Trump is being tried on charges that he broke state law when he made a “hush money” payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels so that she would remain silent about her alleged affair with Trump as the 2016 presidential election approached. But Trump, the first president to be criminally prosecuted, was not yet president when the alleged conduct at the center of that case occurred.
Trump was indicted last summer on four counts arising from Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, attacks on the U.S. Capitol. Trump, the indictment contends, created “widespread mistrust … through pervasive and destabilizing lies about election fraud” and then perpetrated three criminal conspiracies to target “a bedrock function of the United States federal government: the nation’s process of collecting, counting, and certifying the results of the presidential election.”
(Excerpt) Read more at scotusblog.com ...
bkmk
Hopefully Trump’s lawyers make the case that if he does not have immunity, neither do past or current presidents. And he should announce that they will be arrested in his next term if he does not.
I think Trump will win this one because the DOJ gave Bill Clinton Full immunity against anything that happened while he was in office. And Nixon’s Pardon...did the same thing.
IF the USSC finds that Trump has Immunity, it will only happen IF the Fix is in, to make sure he will be, again, robbed of legitimate Election in 2024, just as was done in 2020.
The thing is, Trump never used his executive power to prevent Biden from being certified and sworn in. He made his feelings known to Pence about how he thought Pence should handle the January 6th proceedings. But he never prevented Pence from ruling as he saw fit on that day. So basically all Trump did was express his opinion as president, which is his right. So it seems to me that presidential immunity isn’t even the issue, since no specific presidential power was ever used by Trump to prevent Biden from taking office.
Now, suppose that Trump had taken some executive action, such as declaring a national emergency and preventing Congress from convening until the outcome of a tribunal. Would he be entitled to presidential immunity if he had done that? Only, IMO, if it can be shown that he knew the election was fair but sought to prevent its outcome anyway. Otherwise, he would be acting within his legitimate powers as CIC and should receive presidential immunity.
Alvin Bragg and what is going on in NYC is a perfect example of what can happen if Presidents are not awarded immunity.
“The thing is, Trump never used his executive power to prevent Biden from being certified and sworn in. “
People ignore that fact. He appealed to the Courts, as he had the right to do, and then when denied the relief sought, he packed and left at the appointed time. The left screams “tried to overturn the election!” like little lemmings and ignore the truth.
Its not so much immunity as it is arguing that the president can only be impeached by the House and tried by the Senate for his official acts as president - as set forth in the US Constitution. So he’s not “immune”. There is a mechanism to try any president.
The alternative is that any one of America’s approximately 30,000 DA’s including highly partisan ones in highly partisan areas can charge a president. Given the highly partisan districts some DA’s might come from, this is a free license for any district to hold an elected president hostage. ie “enact this policy we don’t like, and we will charge you with a crime and you’ll get convicted by a jury here”.
We simply can’t have that if we are to have a functioning political system.
And then there is the fact that Trump was already impeached by the house and acquitted by the Senate for the Jan 6 mostly peaceful protest so charging him with it in a criminal trial would be double jeopardy which violates the 5th amendment.
Bingo. Trump's lawyers need to make that point......and point out that two can play at that game....AND WILL if this is allowed to proceed. Go ahead and charge Obama with a crime in a rural Oklahoma district that votes 90%+ Republican. Have the partisan district court judge deny all change of venue motions after the partisan DA has charged him. Then he can be tried by the partisan jury that is out for blood after seeing what the Democrats just pulled. How does that sound? Allow the current lawfare to go forward and that is what you're going to get sooner or later. Its inevitable. You'd have to be a complete fool to think the other side will not retaliate in kind eventually.
Jonathan Turley basically said the same this morning. Said Bragg was Trumps best attorney in the SC case.
I’d like Trump to announce he will arrest Dick Cheney.
He had no such power...Where did you dream that one up from??
Exactly, and I believe enough justices realize that.
Yes. And furthermore it is vital to the Republic that questioning the results of elections not be prevented.
Contempt for Truth—Truth for its own sake—is the evil most fundamental to the Decadence of Western Civilization, and the Democrats and their supporters have embraced this contempt wholeheartedly.
It ought to be that Presidents, and Past Presidents, are immune from criminal charges for things they did or said in office as part of their “official duties”, unless first impeached and convicted by the Senate for the same charges. Or at least something close to that (there are a few limits to the Congressional immunity provided by the debate clause, mostly things limiting it to immunity for actions, speech that are part of their official duties. If trying to charge the President for something under the loophole that it wasn’t part of his official duties that should require a high level of proof that it wasn’t an official action.
bttt
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