Two Courts Say Trump Isn’t Above the Law as an Ex-President

NNPA Newswire

Two federal courts dealt Donald Trump a pair of crucial defeats regarding his broad claims of presidential immunity, setting the stage for a high-stakes legal battle that may reach the United States Supreme Court.

Both decisions came Friday.

The first came from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, in which the three-judge panel held that though presidents enjoy immunity from civil suits for official actions, Trump is not immune from civil suits pertaining to his role in the January 6th insurrection—which the court held was undertaken in his personal capacity as a candidate for office rather than in his official capacity as the nation’s chief executive.

Unless successfully overturned on appeal, this means Trump is vulnerable to civil lawsuits from members of the Capitol police and Congress, or others who have standing.

The second came shortly after from Judge Tanya Chutkan, the presiding judge in the case against Trump brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith, indicting Trump for his role in the insurrection. Trump’s attorneys requested Smith’s case be dismissed on the grounds that their client was exercising speech protected by the First Amendment in his official capacity as the sitting President.

An unpersuaded Chutkan issued a scathing rebuke in her usual rhetorical flourish: “Defendant’s four-year service as Commander in Chief did not bestow on him the divine right of kings to evade the criminal accountability that governs his fellow citizens.”

Trump’s attorneys appealed both decisions immediately.