Federal prosecutors compared Donald Trump to Richard Nixon as they urged the US Supreme Court to reject the claim that he is immune from criminal prosecution, insisting that “no person is above the law, including the president”.
In a filing to America’s highest court, Jack Smith, the special counsel, argued that Trump had committed “an unprecedented assault on the structure of our government” when he sought to overturn his 2020 election defeat to Joe Biden. Trump’s attempt to cling onto power climaxed in the riot at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Trump’s lawyers have claimed that his actions fell within his official duties as president. Two lower courts have rejected the former president’s claim of immunity, setting the stage for a historic showdown before the nine justices of the Supreme Court, which will hear Trump’s appeal on April 25.
Smith compared the case with President Ford’s intervention to pardon Nixon, sparing him from prosecution after the Watergate scandal, which prompted his resignation from the presidency in 1974. Nixon’s acceptance of Ford’s pardon “rested on the understanding that the former president faced potential criminal liability”, Smith argued.
“Since Watergate, the Department of Justice has held the view that a former president may face criminal prosecution… Until [Trump’s] arguments in this case, so had former presidents,” Smith added.
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Smith brought four criminal charges against Trump in the January 6 case last year, including conspiracy to defraud the United States, obstructing the congressional certification of Biden’s victory and conspiring against the right of Americans to vote.
If the court were to accept Trump’s claim of immunity, Smith argued, it would set a historic precedent that effectively granted the president the powers of a king.
Smith said: “The Framers [of the Constitution] had experienced firsthand the dangers of a monarch who was above the law, and they adopted a system of checks and balances to avoid those dangers.
“The president’s constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed does not entail a general right to violate them.”
• Trump’s trials and charges tracked — and where each case stands
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Trump is the first former president to be charged with a crime and faces four indictments as he campaigns to take back the White House in a rematch with Biden in November. He has pleaded not guilty in all four cases, claiming that the charges are politically motivated to derail his presidential campaign.
He has railed against the January 6 case on social media, insisting that “WITHOUT COMPLETE IMMUNITY, A PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO PROPERLY FUNCTION.”
His appeal to the Supreme Court has already achieved his aim of delaying his trial in the January 6 case, which had been due to begin in March. Trump’s legal team has exploited every avenue to delay all four cases until after the election in the hope that if he regains the presidency, he could pardon himself or instruct the Justice Department to dismiss the charges.
Both the judge overseeing the case, Tanya Chutkan, and a three-judge federal appeals panel have previously dismissed Trump’s claim of immunity. Rejecting Trump’s argument in December, Chutkan declared that the presidency “does not confer a lifelong ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ pass.”
Trump’s lawyers have not been able to delay all the cases against him. His criminal trial over hush money payments to conceal an affair with the porn actress Stormy Daniels opens in New York next week. But the January 6 case is widely seen as the most politically damaging of the four in the eyes of swing voters that Trump needs to win if he is to retake the White House.
