Absolute Immunity? Trump Legal Team Quotes Justice Brett Kavanaugh in Supreme Court Filing Against Charging Former Presidents
Donald Trump’s legal team quoted Justice Brett Kavanaugh in a new absolute immunity Supreme Court filing this week.
March 20 2024, Published 11:30 a.m. ET
Donald Trump’s legal team quoted Justice Brett Kavanaugh in a new absolute immunity Supreme Court filing this week, RadarOnline.com has learned.
In the latest development to come as the U.S. Supreme Court prepares to hear Trump’s argument for absolute immunity on April 25, the ex-president’s legal team filed a fresh filing with the court on Tuesday.
The U.S. Supreme Court prepares to hear Trump’s argument for absolute immunity on April 25.
According to the new filing, Trump’s team once again argued that the embattled ex-president cannot be prosecuted for official acts conducted while still serving as commander-in-chief.
“A former President enjoys absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for his official acts,” Tuesday’s filing read. “Criminal immunity arises directly from the Executive Vesting Clause and the separation of powers.”
“From Marbury through Fitzgerald, and beyond, this Court has consistently held that Article III courts cannot sit in judgment directly over the President’s official acts, whether before or after he leaves office,” Trump’s legal team argued.
“A fortiori, the courts cannot sit in criminal judgment over him and imprison him based on his official acts.”
Trump’s team once again argued that the embattled ex-president cannot be prosecuted for official acts conducted while still serving as commander-in-chief.
Meanwhile, Trump’s legal team also included two quotes made by Justice Kavanaugh in 1998 and 2009.
“Prosecution or nonprosecution of a President is, in short, inevitably and unavoidably a political act,” Kavanaugh wrote in 1998.
“A President who is concerned about an ongoing criminal investigation is almost inevitably going to do a worse job as President,” the Supreme Court justice added in a second law review article from 2009.
Trump’s team argued that Kavanaugh’s legal interpretations apply to former presidents as well as current presidents. Trump’s team also erroneously claimed that ex-President Trump was being “prosecuted” by current President Joe Biden.
The Kavanaugh quotes were from 1998 and 2009, respectively.
“This observation applies to former Presidents as well,” they wrote on Tuesday, “and it applies most of all to a former President who is the leading candidate to replace the incumbent who is prosecuting him.”
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As RadarOnline.com previously reported, Tuesday’s filing was not the first time ex-President Trump and his defense team argued that he deserves “absolute immunity” for potential crimes committed while serving in the Oval Office.
While the absolute immunity argument is mainly being used in connection to Special Counsel Jack Smith’s January 6 election interference case against Trump, the 45th president has attempted to use the same defense in the myriad of other criminal cases against him.
It remains unclear whether the Supreme Court will rule in Trump’s favor regarding the immunity defense next month.
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For example, Trump’s team filed a motion to delay the New York hush-money case against the ex-president – which was initially scheduled to kick off in court on March 25 – until after the Supreme Court rules on the absolute immunity matter in April.
While it remains unclear whether the Supreme Court will rule in Trump’s favor regarding the immunity defense next month, the court recently gave Trump a separate win and ruled that he could not be kicked off a state’s general election ballot under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.
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