(USNewsMag.com) – Special Counsel Jack Smith, who is leading the case against former President Donald Trump for alleged election interference, and several retired high-ranking military officials are urging the U.S. Supreme Court to reject the former president’s immunity claim.
Smith said that “no person is above the law” and that includes presidents, an assertion that’s been supported in supplementary filings from former GOP lawmakers and retired military officials.
Trump argues that he has presidential immunity from criminal prosecution, an appeal he’s made in various cases against him. In this case, the former president is accused of inciting the Jan. 6th, 2021, riot at the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., in an attempt to overturn the 2020 election results.
Nineteen military officials, including retired four-star generals and other high-ranking officials, said in a court briefing that the former president’s immunity argument goes against “the foundational principles” of American democracy. The officials warned that ruling in favor of this argument would undermine the “legal and moral authority” of any president going forward to command the military while signaling that presidents are held to a different legal standard than those whom he commands.
The military officials added that favoring Trump’s argument threatens “to inject chaos” into the military and its operations, and would also disrupt future transitions of power between presidents by legitimizing a “notion of such immunity” for presidents who try to negate election results.
The brief, which argues there is no constitutional support for Trump’s argument nor any historical precedent to back it up, is the last chance for prosecutors to make their counter-argument to the Supreme Court before April 25th, when the current term of oral arguments ends and the court weighs in.
Ultimately, Smith argues that the president is subject to federal criminal law and not exempt from it. Trump first tried to have the charges against him dropped last October based on immunity, but the judge overseeing the case rejected the former president’s bid. That resulted in an appeal, pushing the trial date forward, after which the appellate upheld the judge’s decision to reject Trump’s argument, leading him to bring the argument before the Supreme Court.
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