The US Supreme Court on Friday declined to immediately hear former US president Donald Trump’s claim that he is immune from prosecution, potentially delaying his 2020 election interference trial.
Special Counsel Jack Smith had asked the nation’s highest court to take up the immunity case on an expedited basis, bypassing the federal court of appeals.
The Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, including three justices nominated by Trump, denied the request in a one-line order that did not provide any reason for the decision.
Photo: AFP
Seventy-seven-year-old Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, is scheduled to go on trial on March 4 next year on charges of conspiring to overturn the November 2020 election won by US President Joe Biden.
Trump’s lawyers have repeatedly sought to delay the trial until after next year’s election, including with the claim that a former president enjoys “absolute immunity” and cannot be prosecuted for actions he took while in the White House.
US District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is to preside over Trump’s March trial, rejected the immunity claim on Dec. 1, saying a former president does not have a “lifelong ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ pass.”
“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,” she said.
Trump’s lawyers appealed Chutkan’s decision to the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit and Smith, the special counsel, asked the Supreme Court to step in and hear the case itself.
“This case presents a fundamental question at the heart of our democracy: whether a former President is absolutely immune from federal prosecution for crimes committed while in office,” Smith said in a filing to the Supreme Court.
“It is of paramount public importance that respondent’s claims of immunity be resolved as expeditiously as possible — and, if respondent is not immune, that he receive a fair and speedy trial on these charges,” he said.
With the Supreme Court’s rejection of Smith’s request, the appeals court must first hear the immunity case.
Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond, said this could make it difficult to maintain the March trial date.
Tobias said that the Supreme Court had agreed to “fast-track” appeals in 19 cases over the past four years and it was unclear why the justices had declined to do so here.
Trump welcomed the Supreme Court’s move and said he was looking forward to presenting his arguments before the appeals court.
“Of course I am entitled to Presidential Immunity,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform.
“I was President, it was my right and duty to investigate, and speak on, the rigged and stolen 2020 Presidential Election,” he said, repeating his baseless claims.
The DC appeals court has scheduled arguments for Jan. 9 and its ruling is expected to eventually reach the Supreme Court, whose current session ends in June.
DEADLOCK: Putin has vowed to continue fighting unless Ukraine cedes more land, while talks have been paused with no immediate results expected, the Kremlin said Russia on Friday said that peace talks with Kyiv were on “pause” as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin still wanted to capture the whole of Ukraine. Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump said that he was running out of patience with Putin, and the NATO alliance said it would bolster its eastern front after Russian drones were shot down in Polish airspace this week. The latest blow to faltering diplomacy came as Russia’s army staged major military drills with its key ally Belarus. Despite Trump forcing the warring sides to hold direct talks and hosting Putin in Alaska, there
North Korea has executed people for watching or distributing foreign television shows, including popular South Korean dramas, as part of an intensifying crackdown on personal freedoms, a UN human rights report said on Friday. Surveillance has grown more pervasive since 2014 with the help of new technologies, while punishments have become harsher — including the introduction of the death penalty for offences such as sharing foreign TV dramas, the report said. The curbs make North Korea the most restrictive country in the world, said the 14-page UN report, which was based on interviews with more than 300 witnesses and victims who had
COMFORT WOMEN CLASH: Japan has strongly rejected South Korean court rulings ordering the government to provide reparations to Korean victims of sexual slavery The Japanese government yesterday defended its stance on wartime sexual slavery and described South Korean court rulings ordering Japanese compensation as violations of international law, after UN investigators criticized Tokyo for failing to ensure truth-finding and reparations for the victims. In its own response to UN human rights rapporteurs, South Korea called on Japan to “squarely face up to our painful history” and cited how Tokyo’s refusal to comply with court orders have denied the victims payment. The statements underscored how the two Asian US allies still hold key differences on the issue, even as they pause their on-and-off disputes over historical
CONSOLIDATION: The Indonesian president has used the moment to replace figures from former president Jokowi’s tenure with loyal allies In removing Indonesia’s finance minister and U-turning on protester demands, the leader of Southeast Asia’s biggest economy is scrambling to restore public trust while seizing a chance to install loyalists after deadly riots last month, experts say. Demonstrations that were sparked by low wages, unemployment and anger over lawmakers’ lavish perks grew after footage spread of a paramilitary police vehicle running over a delivery motorcycle driver. The ensuing riots, which rights groups say left at least 10 dead and hundreds detained, were the biggest of Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s term, and the ex-general is now calling on the public to restore their
RSS