The US Supreme Court provisionally rejects Donald Trump’s accelerated request for presidential immunity

The 77-year-old, the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, is currently set to stand trial on March 4, 2024, on charges of conspiring to overturn the November 2020 election won by Democrat Joe Biden.

FILE – Former President Donald Trump arrives to board his plane at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Aug. 3, 2023, in Arlington, Virginia, after appearing before a judge on federal conspiracy charges alleging he conspired to undermine the 2020 elections. Trump and his legal team face big odds in their bid to move his 2020 election conspiracy trial out of Washington. They claim that the former Republican president cannot possibly receive a fair trial in the capital of the predominantly Democratic country. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

Washington: The US Supreme Court has refused to hear Donald Trump’s defense of ‘presidential immunity’ until an appeals court reviews the case. Friday’s denial by the nation’s highest court follows a request from Special Counsel Jack Smith for a quick and “final” ruling on whether the former president can claim “immunity” from prosecution for crimes that he allegedly committed during his term of office. The court did not explain its reasoning and no dissenting opinions were noted.

The 77-year-old, the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nominee, is currently set to stand trial on March 4, 2024 on charges of conspiring to overturn the November 2020 election won by Democrat Joe Biden, including his failure to vote succeeded in stopping an election campaign. A mob of his supporters prevents them from breaking into the US Capitol to stop the certification of the results on January 6.

The court’s decision comes as a major blow to Smith, who took an extraordinary gamble when he asked the justices to take the rare step of skipping a federal appeals court and quickly deciding a fundamental issue in his criminal case against Trump during the election subversion.

According to CNN, both sides will still have the opportunity to appeal any ruling by the DC Circuit Court of Appeals to the Supreme Court, but the court’s move is a major victory for Trump, whose strategy of delaying the criminal case included setting up a protracted battle over the immunity issue, which must be resolved before his case goes to trial.

Trump’s lawyers have persistently tried to delay the trial until after next year’s election, citing the ex-president’s “absolute immunity” from prosecution for actions committed while in the White House. Smith had urged the Supreme Court to take the unusual step of bypassing the D.C. Circuit and allowing “immediate review.” A Supreme Court decision was “the only way” to reach a “timely and final resolution” of Trump’s challenge, he argued in his petition.

Lawyers for Trump had urged the justices to deny that request, arguing that a ruling was one of the “most complex, complicated and momentous issues this court will have to decide” and therefore should not be rushed through the judicial hierarchy should be piloted. breakneck speed.”

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who will preside over Trump’s trial in March, rejected the immunity claim on Dec. 1, saying a former president does not have a “lifetime ‘get out of jail’ pass.”