The filing came in the federal election subversion case ahead of 9 January oral arguments
Special counsel Jack Smith has hit back at Donald Trump’s claim of immunity from criminal prosecution in a new court filing.
Mr Smith’s office argued in a Saturday filing that Mr Trump’s claim “threatens to license Presidents to commit crimes to remain in office.”
The filing came in the federal election subversion case ahead of 9 January oral arguments before a US appeals court in Washington DC, reported CNN.
“The defendant asserts (Br.1) that this prosecution ‘threatens … to shatter the very bedrock of our Republic.’ To the contrary: it is the defendant’s claim that he cannot be held to answer for the charges that he engaged in an unprecedented effort to retain power through criminal means, despite having lost the election, that threatens the democratic and constitutional foundation of our Republic,” Mr Smith wrote.
“This Court should affirm and issue the mandate expeditiously to further the public’s — and the defendant’s — compelling interest in a prompt resolution of this case,” he added.
Best quote in the comments by Freethought sums it up for me:
If what Trump says is the standard that a US president has immunity to commit any crime they see fit to do while in office, then the premise of the rule of law is meaningless.
It already was kinda meaningless since the president can tell someone to commit a crime and then pardon them (as happened
with Michael Cohen)Only if it’s a federal crime. Crimes like assaulting police officers, and even bank or election fraud are often filed at the state level. The charges Trump are facing in Georgia are just one example.
What? Who pardoned Michael Cohen? He went to prison. Twice. Trump’s attack dog Barr made sure of it.
sorry, was mixing up Paul Manafort and Roger Stone - there were just so many criminals in that team
No problem, there’s still many shitbirds.
And it means Obama can commit any crimes he likes now. Pretty sure the trump humpers wouldn’t like that.
Fascists worship power. They don’t care about hypocrisy, they care about the position that gives them more power.
A prime example of this is free speech. Fascists love to complain about being silenced yet the moment they take power one of the first things they do is silence the press and shutdown dissenting opinions. Free speech is a tool to get them power, quickly discarded when it comes to maintaining or expanding power.
Fascists know they are hypocrites, they don’t care. They’ll abandon positions the second they don’t lead to getting them more power.
Where did you get that?
Trumps flat out wrong about this immunity claim, and it would pretty much destroy all checks and balances if allowed, but he’s only claiming it for acts while he was still in office. Jan 6th happened while he was still legally the President. He’s claiming that he has immunity for actions as President.
Obama hasn’t been president in 7 years. Anything he does now is as a normal citizen. An equal comparison would be if Obama were charged today for something that happened in 2016, and he claimed immunity.
It would mean that Biden would be immune from prosecution for anything though now, which would set up for him just ignoring any election, legally.
Serious question: can you not recognize sarcasm, or irony? The poster you’re answering was clearly not serious, and was pointing out hypocrisy.
I don’t see any sarcasm is irony in there. It’s an attempt at an analogy but the mistake is so big as to only confuse the matter further.
I meant if the SC accepted trump’s argument that he’s got unconditional immunity even for things after he left office (which they won’t, but hypothetically if they did), it would mean that would apply to Biden, Obama, and Clinton, too.
He’s trying the immunity argument for the classified docs thing, too, not just J6. If he can still claim immunity after leaving office, Obama could go on a crime spree and claim immunity, too.
None of that matters, though, because this whole claim is laughably unconstitutional.
If Trump was immune from being prosecuted from crimes while in office, what’s stopping Biden from doing the same thing? Seriously, some one needs to ask Dipper Don that question!
“Okay Dipper Don, so if it’s completely leagal for the president to overthrow the US government, why should Biden even let you back in office if you win the 2024 election? Couldn’t he just do what you did but with way less incompetence?”
That’s the best part of it, if the president is ruled absolutely immune, they can override anything including the supreme court, break any law, commit any crime. Biden could imprison Trump for life. I’m sure Trump knows this but he’s desperate.
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Remember that half of Congress is under GOP control. How should the Dems holds the court to account when they don’t have the congressional control necessary?
I mean, I agree with you in general, Democrats are very unwilling to take off the gloves (this is actually a good thing, even if it is frustrating). Let’s not layer on something they politically just cannot bring about.
this is actually a good thing, even if it is frustrating.
Yeah…no. This has repeatedly proved itself to be an incredibly naive position. The bending over backwards for bipartisanship rather than going on the attack against the conservative cult has been a fucking disaster for this country.
I agree we have reached the point to take off the gloves. I am saying it is better that Democrats have, in general, tried to play by the rules as intended. We want people to want to be ethical.
Being a slave to the performative and procedural decorum when fighting a terrorist organization masquerading as a political party has worked out about as well as bringing a knife to a gun fight. There are so many instances where Democrats had Republicans by the proverbial throat, and had the opportunity to deliver real change for the American people.
Almost without fail they have ceded that advantage in favor of not upsetting the status quo, and then claiming later it was in all of our best interest even though Republicans turn around and blow up our institutions anyway. You’re lying to yourself if you think that has been a winning strategy, or that it has anything to do with ethics.
If they rule for immunity, Biden should just hold Congress hostage until they pass some Constitutional amendments, such as scrapping Electoral College, adding term limits to Supreme Court, etc, then a final one that explicitly disavows any such immunity for the President or any other person, from the moment he releases them forward.
Hell, Biden could just order the Secret Service to lock up Trump. If he needed any sort of excuse he could just claim Trump has threatened him, which wouldn’t really be a stretch.
President sends secret service or military operation to gun down all supreme court members that don’t fall in line, and then places the new judges. Immune to charges. Hmm… I don’t think the supreme court would find it in their best interest to vote the president has immunity
