Trump doesn’t get a pass for criminal acts committed in office

It was no surprise that the U.S. Supreme Court turned down Special Counsel Jack Smith’s very unusual request to hear an appeal of a trial judge’s decision that Donald Trump does not enjoy presidential immunity for criminal acts committed during his term of office even before an appeals court ruled on the matter.

Smith asked that the Big Nine immediately take up D.C. Federal Judge Tanya Chutkan’s Dec. 1 order denying Trump protection from prosecution. While Trump wants Chutkan’s stinging decree overturned (she wrote that the “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”) and the case will certainly end up before the Supremes, Trump is in no hurry, while Smith is nervously watching the calendar. The March 4 start of Trump’s federal criminal trial on the 2020 election is now in doubt.

Trump’s lawyers wrote in papers filed over the weekend that presidents enjoy immunity for their official acts while in office and that continues after they leave office. There’s some logic to that, as we wouldn’t want former presidents brought up on charges by their successors. But what Trump’s lawyers fail to explain is that Trump is being prosecuted for non-official acts. Nowhere in the statute books does stealing an election fall under official acts.

Trump also argues that since he was impeached for the same actions (the Jan. 6 Capitol attack) by the House and acquitted by the Senate, a criminal trial now would be double jeopardy.

But it was exactly the opposite logic that some senators used to vote against conviction, that as a private citizen post-jan. 20, he could face justice. And Jack Smith is seeking justice.

Trump had immunity from just about everything while he was in office, but once he left office he’s just a regular Donald, as liable to prosecution as anyone else who committed a felony.

Calling up Georgia’s secretary of state to have him find 11,780 more votes and pressuring Michigan election officials to not certify results and summoning a mob are not in any way official acts. Those are crimes, for which Trump must pay.