Donald Trump seeks to convince the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a court decision to remove him from the ballot in Colorado due to his involvement in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack.
Trump will argue that the constitutional provision his opponents are using to remove him from the ballot does not apply to him as a former president.
He has been making similar assertions in lower courts as he fights four criminal cases and civil litigation. Trump has repeatedly claimed that he is immune or not subject to these legal challenges.
Michael Gerhardt, a University of North Carolina law professor, said, “Trump appears obsessed with trying to place himself above the law.”
The Supreme Court is set to hear Trump’s appeal on Thursday, in which he was disqualified from the state’s Republican primary ballot under the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment for engaging in insurrection.
While Trump has not claimed presidential immunity as a defense in that case, it may still be an issue in criminal and civil actions related to overturning his 2020 election loss and defamation claims from a woman accusing him of rape.
In the past, Trump has shown contempt for constraints on his actions, famously stating during his 2016 campaign that he “could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters.”
He has also tried to avoid federal criminal charges regarding his efforts to overturn the 2020 election by claiming that a president could order Navy commandos to assassinate a political rival and still be immune from prosecution unless impeached.
In his social media posts, Trump said that a president needs immunity even for “events that ‘cross the line.'”
Trump is advancing immunity claims in other cases that could potentially reach the Supreme Court, despite the fact that the Court has historically held that presidential immunity cannot be absolute.
Trump’s fight against federal criminal charges is now pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit after a federal judge rejected his immunity assertion.
University of California, Berkeley, law professor John Yoo expects the Supreme Court to reject Trump’s claim of presidential immunity.
Trump has similarly claimed presidential immunity in a Georgia criminal case concerning election interference, civil lawsuits related to the Capitol riot, and a defamation lawsuit filed against him.
The Supreme Court in 2020 rejected Trump’s claim of immunity from a subpoena issued as part of an investigation into hush money paid by his lawyer.
Some legal experts doubt that Trump will prevail at the Supreme Court on the immunity issue, but have warned of the consequences if he does, saying it would “send the dangerous message that presidents can disregard the Constitution and federal law with impunity.”
(Reporting by Andrew Chung in New York and John Kruzel in Washington; Editing by Will Dunham and Scott Malone)
