The US Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to hear Trump’s presidential immunity claim in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s January 6 case in Washington, DC.
The high court will hear oral arguments on an expedited schedule the week of April 22 and decide by the end of the term in June or sooner.
Judge Tanya Chutkan postponed the March 4 trial date indefinitely as Trump’s immunity argument makes its way through the courts.
Earlier this month President Trump asked the US Supreme Court to pause the immunity ruling in Jack Smith’s January 6 case in DC.
A federal appeals court stacked with Biden judges previously denied Trump immunity in Jack Smith’s DC case.
The three-judge panel for the DC Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Trump immunity claims: Florence Pan (Biden appointee), Michelle Childs (Biden appointee), and Karen Henderson (George W. Bush appointee).
“We have balanced former President Trump’s asserted interests in executive immunity against the vital public interests that favor allowing this prosecution to proceed,” the three-judge panel wrote.
“We conclude that ‘concerns of public policy, especially as illuminated by our history and the structure of our government’ compel the rejection of his claim of immunity in this case,” they wrote.
Trump’s lawyers argued that Trump is immune from federal prosecution for alleged ‘crimes’ committed while he served as US President.
“In 234 years of American history, no president ever faced criminal prosecution for his official acts. Until 19 days ago, no court had ever addressed whether immunity from such prosecution exists,” Trump’s lawyers wrote in last month’s filing, according to CBS News. “To this day, no appellate court has addressed it. The question stands among the most complex, intricate, and momentous issues that this Court will be called on to decide.”
On January 9 a three-judge panel heard oral arguments and appeared skeptical of Trump’s immunity claims – one judge, a Biden appointee, asked attorney John Sauer if Trump would be subject to criminal prosecution if he ordered SEAL Team 6 to assassinate his political rivals.
