U.S. Department of Justice Special Counsel Jack Smith said Donald Trump's view of absolute immunity for actions he takes as president fundamentally changes American democracy and makes it clear that elected leaders, not elected leaders, It would give the president unprecedented powers akin to that of a monarch, it said in a prepared response to the U.S. Supreme Court late Monday.
Smith's 66-page brief responds to Trump's argument in the high court that federal criminal charges against him for trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election should be dismissed because he was president at the time. He said Trump's claims were a “radical proposal” that overturned the fundamentals. Principles of American Democracy.
Trump's assertion that acts committed while president cannot be prosecuted “frees the president from virtually all criminal laws, including crimes such as bribery, murder, treason, and sedition.” Mr. Smith wrote.
During oral arguments before the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in January, President Trump's lawyer, D. John Sauer, said the team's theory of broad presidential immunity meant that if the president were not president, a sixth SEAL team He said this means the president cannot be prosecuted for ordering the assassination of a political opponent. He was first impeached and removed from office by Congress.
In President Trump's brief in court last month, his lawyers touted the theory of “absolute presidential immunity,” which argues that the president cannot be criminally prosecuted for actions he committed while in office. insisted.
The only exception to this rule, Trump's lawyers argued, is a president who has been impeached and removed from office.
President Trump was impeached by the Democratic-controlled U.S. House of Representatives on January 6, 2021, for inciting insurrection when a mob of his supporters tried to block the certification of the 2020 election results. The Senate was split, falling short of the two-thirds threshold for conviction, but seven Republicans joined all Democrats and independents in voting for conviction.
Trump is the presumptive Republican presidential nominee this year.
Smith said Monday that President Trump's broad immunity claims put too much faith in Congress' inherently political process for imposing criminal charges.
Impeachment, he wrote, “is not intended to impose accountability according to ordinary law.”
Get the morning headlines delivered to your inbox
Past examples
Prosecutors also took aim at historical cases cited by President Trump to support his immunity claims.
Smith said the examples Trump used either applied only to sitting presidents and not former presidents, or were used to dismiss civil lawsuits rather than criminal charges.
In contrast, Watergate served as an example of how presidents have long understood that they will be subject to criminal justice even after they leave office.
By offering a pardon, President Gerald R. Ford signaled that former President Richard Nixon could be held accountable for his crimes. And President Nixon supported his view by accepting the pardon, Smith said.
Every president since George Washington has understood that they are subject to criminal prosecution and punishment, Smith said.
The U.S. legal system is based on the principle that no person – regardless of their job title – is above the law, Smith said.
Other interpretations, including the one pushed by Trump and his legal team, would make the presidency indistinguishable from a monarchy, Smith wrote. This view “would have been anathema” to the framers of the Constitution, who “adopted a system of checks and balances to avoid” the dangers of a monarch above the law.
Criminal charges are not civil lawsuits
Smith also argued that Trump's claim that rejecting a broad interpretation of executive privilege would motivate future political prosecutions of all former presidents is unfounded.
Citing Supreme Court precedent, Smith said protections against civil lawsuits may be appropriate.
But federal criminal charges are much harder to exploit because they can only be brought by the Justice Department and are subject to “institutional standards of fair prosecution,” Smith said.
“There are strong safeguards against baseless prosecutions,” Smith said.
Smith's brief was a response to former President Trump's theory of “absolute presidential immunity” last month.
Trump's lawyers have said the president needs immunity from criminal prosecution for the office itself to function. The Trump campaign argues that the framers were happy with the independence of the executive branch in exchange for criminal liability for the president, and that a similar ban on civil lawsuits should apply to complaints brought by federal grand juries. did.
next
President Trump has the option to respond to Smith's brief by the end of April 15th.
Oral argument on the immunity issue is scheduled for April 25.
The Supreme Court case aims to decide pretrial issues in a federal case related to President Trump's involvement in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
President Trump asked the trial court to dismiss the charges based on claims of presidential immunity. Both the trial judge and the D.C. Circuit rejected that argument.
In Monday's brief, prosecutors asked the court to promptly submit an opinion on the case. The start of the trial was delayed for several months while the liability issue was pending.
With less than seven months until Election Day, the four criminal cases against Trump will increasingly conflict with his campaign schedule as he seeks a return to the White House.
A separate criminal trial against Trump on charges of falsifying corporate records in New York is scheduled to begin on April 15.
