The various courtroom dramas that former President Trump is experiencing in recent days are dominating the network news cycle and podcasts on YouTube by legal experts.
Mr. Trump and his attorneys are exhausting every nook and cranny of legal textbooks and court precedents for some glimmer of hope, some magic bullet to excuse his criminal behavior and render him immune to prosecution. Or, at least, delay the proceedings until after the 2024 elections, in the hopes that he will be re-elected and can somehow squelch those pesky court cases or simply pardon himself.
His chances of doing so are possibly 50-50 in the Mar-a-Lago “top secret” documents case, as the judge in that matter is a Trump appointee and is very obviously trying to help him out.
This is not the case in the New York civil trial against the Trump Organization (for chronic business fraud), nor in the Georgia election extortion case nor in the Washington D.C. case involving the 1/6/21 Capitol Riot matter.
Trump attorneys have recently rolled out a generic defense of their client’s tawdry actions by claiming that, as President, he enjoyed immunity from prosecution and, thus, as an ex-President, continues to do so.
Unfortunately for Donald Trump, the U.S. Constitution grants no such immunity. The “I was just doing my job” excuse can hardly apply to strong-arming several Georgia officials to change the votes that had been cast sufficient that Trump could squeak out an electoral victory. Ditto for inciting a mob to attack the Capitol Building and delay the Congressional certification of the 2020 election.
As far as I can determine, a President has no official role in the electoral process, a responsibility that is Constitutionally assigned to the States.
Should a State flub up its responsibility (like botching an election, which Trump asserted after the 2020 election), the Department of Justice might intervene if Federal election laws were violated. Trump and his crew tried to claim this after the election, however no proof was ever provided despite many recounts and audits. In fact, Trump’s own Attorney General Bill Barr publicly asserted (before the Capitol Riot) that the 2020 elections had been clean of fraud.
Thus, the President did not have a Constitutional duty or an excuse to involve himself in the electoral process. He got involved because he was defeated by Joe Biden and was mad about it.
There is no Presidential immunity from doing criminal acts, particularly if such acts do not fall within the job description.
Trump is also raising another lame defense: that because the Senate failed to convict him in his second impeachment trial, then therefore he is innocent of the crimes he is now being prosecuted for relative to the Capitol Riot escapade.
That excuse does not hold water, either.
Impeachment is a political undertaking, not a criminal trial. It is a Constitutionally-provided remedy for removing a President from office for “high crimes and misdemeanors” like, for example, attempting to extort the Ukrainian President to “find dirt” on Joe Biden during the 2020 election campaign. The fact that Trump did the crime was not in dispute, as there were witnesses to the phone conversation. The Senate failed to convict the President simply because there were more Republican Senators than Democratic Senators in the “jury”.
(That impeachment is a political tool, and not a judicial process, is evident when one considers the impeachment trial of ex-Prez Bill Clinton, whose “high crime and misdemeanor” was getting a blow job in the Oval Office. Bad judgment and unworthy of the office, for sure, but probably not a crime or even a misdemeanor. The Republicans just wanted to embarrass Clinton and they did so, using the impeachment process.)
Because those Senatorial Republican buddies of President Trump didn’t convict him doesn’t mean that a crime wasn’t committed. However, the ex-President’s attorneys are now claiming that his impeachment exoneration is tantamount to a criminal judgment of “innocent” and the recent charges against him are, in a sense, double jeopardy, which is outlawed.
If Trump’s attorneys’ recent creative assertions (immunity and double jepardy) were to be upheld by the Judicial Branch of government, it would allow a President who enjoys majority support in Congress to do just about anything he might want to do without any legal repercussions. He would, in essence, become a King, accountable to no one. He could, for example, do away with elections or kill anyone in the opposition Party or journalists who don’t kowtow to him.
There would be no more democracy in the United States.
That is not what the U.S. Constitution envisions or provides, and it would be breathtaking for the Supreme Court to assert this, particularly since most of the Justices are considered to be “Conservative” (i.e. hewing to the original intent of the Founding Fathers).
On the other hand, the current Supreme Court is facing strong criticism on the ethical front, and shows no signs of cleaning up its act. Each Justice, appointed for life, is accountable to no one, so a majority of Justices can engineer a lot of mischief.
Since they are “immune” from criticism, maybe they will extend this privilege to Presidents and ex-Presidents?
We shall see about this “immunity” idea.