Focus in Trump case falls on Supreme Court

Panel rejects claims of presidential immunity

In Donald Trump’s federal 2020 election interference case, all eyes are on the Supreme Court, whose next moves could determine whether the former president stands trial in Washington before the November election.

An appeals court panel on Tuesday unanimously rejected Trump’s claims that he is immune from prosecution, with the judges saying they cannot accept the idea that former presidents are “above the law for all time” once they leave the White House.

The ruling forces Trump to move quickly to ask the conservative-majority Supreme Court to intervene in the landmark case accusing Trump of conspiring to overturn his 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden. Otherwise, the case — which has been on hold since December — will be re-started at the trial court level, and special counsel Jack Smith’s team has strongly pushed for jurors to hear it this year.

What happens next is of paramount importance to both sides.

Trump’s lawyers have tried at every opportunity to delay the proceedings, for obvious reasons:

A Trump victory over Democrat Biden in November would make him head of the executive branch and give him the authority to order his new attorney general to dismiss the federal cases against him that he faces or issue a pardon for himself. The Republican presidential primary front-runner has denied any wrongdoing in the case and has characterized all of the cases against him as politically motivated.

Here’s a look at Trump’s options and what the Supreme Court might do: The ruling doesn’t immediately send the case back to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan. The appeals court is giving Trump until Feb. 12 to ask the Supreme Court to stay — or put on hold — the decision.

A Trump campaign spokesman said Tuesday that the former president would appeal the ruling “in order to safeguard the Presidency and the Constitution.” Trump argues that all the allegations in the indictment were “official acts” taken as president, therefore he can’t be prosecuted.

Trump could also ask the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to consider his immunity claims, but the panel said that such a request would not prevent the case from returning to the trial court and resuming in the meantime.

The Supreme Court is already weighing some other politically charged cases. The justices heard arguments last week in a legal dispute stemming from the push by Republican and independent voters in Colorado to kick Trump off the state’s Republican primary ballot because of his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Biden.

Chutkan had scheduled the case for trial on March 4 but recently canceled that date. A new date wasn’t immediately set.

The timing now depends on the Supreme Court and its willingness to take up the case.

Jose Luis Magana The Associated Press file Supporters of former President Donald Trump protest in January 2023 outside of the Supreme Court on the second anniversary of the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.