‘No Person Is Above the Law’

Special Counsel Jack Smith urged the U.S. Supreme Court to reject Donald Trump’s presidential immunity claims in a court filing on Monday, reiterating his stance that “no person is above the law.”

Smith is leading the federal prosecution of the former president, who’s charged with unlawfully attempting to overturn his loss to President Joe Biden in the 2020 election. The case is set to appear before the Supreme Court on April 25, as Trump presses to have the indictment dismissed on claims that he’s shielded from facing criminal charges for actions he took while serving in the White House.

Trump’s presidential immunity claims have already been turned down by lower courts— first by U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan in December and again by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in February. But the nation’s high court later in February agreed to take up the case, writing in a one-page order that it sets to answer “to what extent does a former President enjoy presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for conduct alleged to involve official acts.”

Smith argued in his filing Monday that the “absence of any prosecutions of former Presidents until this case does not reflect the understanding that Presidents are immune from criminal liability; it instead underscores the unprecedented nature of petitioner’s alleged conduct.”

“The effective functioning of the Presidency does not require that a former President be immune from accountability for these alleged violations of federal criminal law,” Smith continued in his 49-page argument. “To the contrary, a bedrock principle of our constitutional order is that no person is above the law—including the President.”

Trump’s lawyers wrote in their filing to the Supreme Court last month that the “long history of not prosecuting Presidents for official acts, despite ample motive and opportunity to do so over the years, demonstrates that the newly discovered alleged power to do so does not exist.” The defense team also argued that only a president “‘convicted’ by the Senate after impeachment could be criminally prosecuted.”

The former president’s defense team has previously pointed out that Trump was acquitted by the Senate during his second impeachment trial, in which the House of Representatives voted to pass articles of impeachment against Trump over his actions surrounding the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Newsweek reached out to Trump’s campaign team via email for additional comment Monday night.

Legal experts have anticipated that Trump will be disappointed by the Supreme Court’s final decision on his argument, including Alan Dershowitz, an attorney who represented Trump during his first impeachment trial in 2020.

“All the pundits are predicting that it will just be affirmed, affirmed, affirmed and thrown out. I don’t think so,” Dershowitz told Fox Business during an appearance on Mornings with Maria last month. “I think the Supreme Court may well split the difference and say, ‘There is some immunity not as broad as Trump wanted, not as narrow as the other side wanted, let’s send it back and see where it goes from here.'”

Over a dozen former prosecutors, constitutional lawyers and elected officials have also signed a brief supporting Smith against Trump’s argument of presidential immunity, including Ty Cobb, who served as Trump’s special counsel for two years.

That brief, signed earlier this month, argued that the Constitution does not give former presidents immunity from criminal prosecution, and even if some limited immunity existed, it would not apply to Trump’s actions included in Smith’s indictment.