The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments Thursday on whether former President Donald Trump is immune from prosecution in Special Counsel Jack Smith\u2019s election interference case.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The high court agreed it would review whether Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has immunity from prosecution.<\/p>\n
Arguments at the Supreme Court are expected to begin at 10 a.m. Thursday, but the former president will not be present for the proceedings.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Instead, Trump will be in New York City for the seventh day of his criminal trial stemming from charges out of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg\u2019s investigation. Trump has pleaded not guilty to all 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Trump, a criminal defendant, is required to be present for each day of his trial. He requested, though, to attend Supreme Court arguments on presidential immunity, but Judge Juan Merchan, who is presiding over the trial, rejected that request.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018Arguing before the\u00a0Supreme\u00a0Court\u00a0is a big deal, and I can certainly appreciate why your client would want to be there, but a trial in New York\u00a0Supreme\u00a0Court\u2026 is also a big deal,\u2019 Merchan said last week, requiring the former president to be in his Manhattan courtroom.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A ruling from the Supreme Court on the issue of presidential immunity is expected by late June.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s criminal trial stemming from Smith\u2019s investigation has been put on hold pending a resolution on the matter.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The former president and his legal team, in requesting the Supreme Court review the issue of presidential immunity, said that \u2018if the prosecution of a President is upheld, such prosecutions will recur and become increasingly common, ushering in destructive cycles of recrimination.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018Criminal prosecution, with its greater stigma and more severe penalties, imposes a far greater \u2018personal vulnerability\u2019 on the President than any civil penalty,\u2019 Trump\u2019s lawyers wrote. \u2018The threat of future criminal prosecution by a politically opposed Administration will overshadow every future President\u2019s official acts \u2013 especially the most politically controversial decisions.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s request states that the president\u2019s \u2018political opponents will seek to influence and control his or her decisions via effective extortion or blackmail with the threat, explicit or implicit, of indictment by a future, hostile Administration, for acts that do not warrant any such prosecution.\u2019<\/p>\n
Smith charged the former president with conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding; and conspiracy against rights. Those charges stemmed from Smith\u2019s investigation into whether Trump was involved in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and any alleged interference in the 2020 election result.<\/p>\n
Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges in August.<\/p>\n
\u2018Without presidential immunity, it would be impossible for a president to properly function, putting the United States of America in great and everlasting danger!\u2019 Trump posted on his Truth Social last week, in all capital letters. \u2018If they take away my presidential immunity, they take away crooked Joe Biden\u2019s presidential immunity.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
In another post, Trump argued that if a president does not have immunity, \u2018the Opposing Party, during his\/her term in Office, can extort and blackmail the President by saying that, \u2018if you don\u2019t give us everything we want, we will Indict you for things you did while in Office,\u2019 even if everything done was totally Legal and Appropriate.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018That would be the end of the Presidency, and our Country, as we know it, and is just one of the many Traps there would be for a President without Presidential Immunity,\u2019 Trump posted.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Pointing to his presidential predecessors, and 2020 and 2024 opponent Biden, Trump said: \u2018Obama, Bush, and soon, Crooked Joe Biden, would all be in BIG TROUBLE.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018If a President doesn\u2019t have IMMUNITY, he\/she will be nothing more than a \u2018Ceremonial\u2019 President, rarely having the courage to do what has to be done for our Country,\u2019 Trump continued, calling for the protection of presidential immunity. \u2018MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
Trump added that if immunity is not granted to a president, \u2018every president that leaves office will be immediately indicted by the opposing party.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018Without complete immunity, a president of the United States would not be able to properly function,\u2019 he said again.<\/p>\n
This will be the second time this term the Supreme Court will hear a case involving the presumed Republican presidential nominee.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Last month, the Supreme Court\u00a0sided unanimously with Trump\u00a0in his challenge to Colorado\u2019s attempt to kick him off the 2024 primary ballot.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The high court ruled in favor of Trump\u2019s arguments in the case, which will impact the status of efforts in several other states to remove\u00a0the likely GOP nominee\u00a0from their respective ballots.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The court considered for the first time the meaning and reach of Article 3 of the 14th Amendment, which bars former officeholders who \u2018engaged in insurrection\u2019 from holding public office again. Challenges have been filed to remove Trump from the 2024 ballot in over 30 states.<\/p>\n
Trump, during an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital after that ruling, shifted back to the issue of presidential immunity.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018Equally important for our country will be the decision that they will soon make on immunity for a president \u2013 without which, the presidency would be relegated to nothing more than a ceremonial position, which is far from what the founders intended,\u2019 Trump told Fox News Digital. \u2018No president would be able to properly and effectively function without complete and total immunity.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
He added, \u2018Our country would be put at great risk.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n\n
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments Thursday on whether former President Donald Trump is immune from prosecution in Special Counsel Jack Smith\u2019s election interference case.\u00a0 The high court agreed it would review whether Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has immunity from prosecution. Arguments at the Supreme Court are expected to begin at 10 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":18366,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-18365","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18365\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}