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The questions of the three judges in the Appeal raised deep doubts about the validity of the former president's arguments...
Donald Trump does not have criminal immunity from investigations into his attempts to overturn the outcome of the 2020 election, which culminated in the attack on the Capitol.
Three judges of the Washington Court of Appeals reached this conclusion. That means for the Court, the federal trial in Washington must go ahead, since Trump cannot be granted immunity. The former president claimed that he had immunity from investigations, but the court says 'no'.
Justices Karen Henderson (a George HW Bush appointee), Florence Pan and Michelle Childs (a Biden appointee) had listened with skepticism last January to an appeal filed by Trump's lawyers, who claimed criminal immunity for the former president. They announced that, despite the privileges he enjoyed as president, Trump today is subject to the Criminal Code like any other American. "In this case, former President Trump is Citizen Trump. Any presidential immunity that may have protected him while he was in office no longer protects him," the court said.
Trump had appealed to the Court of Appeals the decision of Judge Tanya Chutkan, who had also denied immunity, explaining that former White House residents did not have "the divine rights of kings to avoid criminal liability that applies to fellow citizens Theirs".
The questions of the three judges at the Appeal raised deep doubts about the validity of the former president's arguments. Judge Pan presented a hypothetical situation, asking whether or not a president could be impeached if he ordered Navy SEALs to kill a political rival. Trump's lawyer has argued that he cannot be indicted in this case either, unless he is first impeached and convicted by the Senate.
Trump was "amnestied" by the Senate in this case and therefore the lawyer contested the legitimacy of a criminal proceeding. Trump said allowing the Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith's case to continue would be like "opening a Pandora's box, something the nation will never recover from," because it would lead to a cycle revenge in which each president can judge his predecessor.
The decision is important to American jurisprudence because it addressed a question that an appeals court had never before opined: can a former president avoid being tried by the judiciary for something he did while in office in duty?
The question now is whether the trial, which was supposed to begin on March 4 and has been postponed pending the resolution of the immunity issue, can realistically take place before the November vote. Winning immunity is just one of Trump's goals. The other is to slow down all processes sufficiently. If he wins the election and returns to the White House, he will be able to try to drop the charges against him or get a pardon.
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