Judge Rejects Trump’s Desperate ‘Presidential Immunity’ Bid in Scathing Ruling
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan has denied a request to dismiss Special Counsel Jack Smith’s indictment that alleges the former president sought to overthrow the results of the 2020 presidential election. The request, made by lawyers acting for Donald Trump, argued that the indictment criminalizes his free speech and thus violates the First Amendment. His lawyers asked Chutkan to recall former President Richard Nixon’s immunity from civil damages while in office, a 1982 Supreme Court decision that protected the president from litigation. “Here, 234 years of unbroken historical practice—from 1789 until 2023— provide compelling evidence that the power to indict a former president for his official acts does not exist,” his lawyers argued. That argument failed to land. On Friday, Chutkan issued a scathing ruling that made one thing abundantly clear: Trump is not a king and he will face charges. “Defendant’s four-year service as Commander in Chief...