‘Without regard to numbers, wealth or rank’: Special counsel rails against Trump ‘scattershot’ First Amendment claims as demand for ‘special exception’

Right: Former President Donald Trump speaks during a break in his civil business fraud trial at New York Supreme Court, Wednesday, Oct. 25, 2023, in New York. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig/Left: Special counsel Jack Smith speaks to the media about an indictment of former President Donald Trump, Tuesday, Aug. 1, 2023, at an office of the Department of Justice in Washington. AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite.

Right: Former President Donald Trump speaks during a break in his civil business fraud trial at New York Supreme Court, Wednesday, Oct. 25, 2023, in New York. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig/Left: Special counsel Jack Smith speaks to the media about an indictment of former President Donald Trump, Tuesday, Aug. 1, 2023, at an office of the Department of Justice in Washington. AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite.

Former President Donald Trump has asked for a halt to his election subversion trial in Washington, D.C., while he works to appeal a ruling from U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan that found he is not immune from prosecution under claims of presidential immunity or on constitutional grounds, according to a 1-page brief entered on the docket on Thursday.

Trump’s attorneys John Lauro and Todd Blanche elaborated in a separate 11-page filing, telling Chutkan her rulings against him on Dec. 1 were issued “incorrectly.”

Chutkan, in the lengthy decision, found that presidents, despite their years in service as the nation’s topmost official, are not granted with the “divine right of kings to evade the criminal accountability that governs his fellow citizens.”

“Whatever immunities a sitting President may enjoy, the United States has only one Chief Executive at a time, and that position does not confer a lifelong ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ pass,” she wrote. “Presidents enjoy no special conditions on their federal criminal liability. Defendant may be subject to federal investigation, indictment, prosecution, conviction, and punishment for any criminal acts undertaken in office.”

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