2024-04-25 18:45:00
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court of the United States has begun investigating this Thursday regarding Donald Trump Enjoy immunity punishment as a former president for his actions while in office.
The justices examined for the first time whether a former president has absolute immunity from criminal charges for actions he took while in office. He is the first former president to be charged with crimes and faces a series of lawsuits brought by Democrats in an attempt to remove him from the campaign trail.
The timing of the Supreme Court’s decision can be just as important as the outcome. The Supreme Court usually issues its final decisions of the session in late June, regarding four months before the election.
Trump’s lawyers argue that former presidents are entitled to absolute immunity for their official acts. Otherwise, they say, politically motivated prosecutions of former presidents would be routine, and presidents would not be able to assume the role of commander-in-chief if they have to worry regarding criminal charges.
Lower courts staffed by Democratic judges have rejected those arguments, including a three-judge panel of an appeals court in Washington, DC
The election interference conspiracy case brought by special counsel Jack Smith in Washington is just one of four criminal cases Trump faces.
Smith’s team argues that the framers of the Constitution never intended for presidents to be above the law, and that in any case the actions of which Trump is accused — including participating in a scheme to include electoral fraud in battleground states won by Biden — are in no way part of a president’s official duties.
Nearly four years ago, all nine justices rejected Trump’s claim for absolute immunity from a district attorney’s subpoena over his financial records. That case unfolded during Trump’s presidency and involved a criminal investigation, but no charges were filed.
Complains of Trump
Trump He complained to reporters in New York before entering a court that is trying him for allegedly falsifying business documents to “hide” a payment to a porn actress to buy her silence over an alleged extramarital affair before the 2016 election.
The former president said the judge presiding over this case did not allow him to attend the Supreme Court hearing. “I would have loved to be there, I should have been there, but this judge didn’t allow it,” lamented the Republican presidential candidate. Without immunity “You will be a ceremonial president,” he added.
There is no case law on the matter, because until Trump no former White House tenant had been charged with a crime.
“As everyone knows, Richard Nixon broke the criminal code,” recalls James Sample, a professor of constitutional law at Hofstra University.
“But since he resigned and Gerald Ford pardoned him, we’ve never had to directly address the notion of a criminal case once morest a former president,” he adds.
Special prosecutor Jack Smith brought the election conspiracy case once morest Trump77, in August and has since pushed for the trial to begin in March in the middle of the election campaign.
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FUENTE: With information from AP and AFP
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