Washington: 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 (February 6) in a landmark ruling.
The ruling is a major blow to Trump’s key defense thus far in the federal election subversion case brought against him by special counsel Jack Smith.
The former president had argued that the conduct Smith charged him over was part of his official duties as president and therefore shield him from criminal liability.
“For the purpose of this criminal case, former President Trump has become citizen Trump, with all of the defenses of any other criminal defendant.
But any executive immunity that may have protected him while he served as President no longer protects him against this prosecution,” the court wrote.
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Trump had claimed in the landmark legal case that he was immune from criminal charges for acts he said fell within his duties as president.
But Tuesday’s unanimous ruling in Washington DC struck down that claim.
It is a setback for Mr Trump, who has for years cited presidential immunity while battling multiple cases.
“We cannot accept former President Trump’s claim that a president has unbounded authority to commit crimes that would neutralise the most fundamental check on executive power – the recognition and implementation of election results,” the three-judge panel from the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit wrote in its opinion.
