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Former U.S. President Donald Trump is seeking to freeze his election-fraud case after filing an appeal.
If granted, the freeze could delay by months his trial, due to begin in March before a Washington, D.C. jury; the appeal is based on the complex legal issue of presidential immunity.
Trump's lawyer Todd Blanche filed a notice of appeal on Thursday, along with a $605 filing fee. At the same time, he also filed a motion for "an automatic stay of proceedings pending appeal." On December 1, Judge Tanya Chutkan rejected Trump's claim that he had presidential immunity from prosecution in his election-fraud case.
It is one of four criminal cases that Trump is facing while he campaigns as frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination. He has also pleaded not guilty to charges in the other cases, denying any wrongdoing, and has repeatedly said that they form part of a political witch hunt. Newsweek sought email comment on Friday from Donald Trump's attorney.
Trump remains the frontrunner to take the Republican nomination in the 2024 presidential election race.
"The filing of President Trump's notice of appeal has deprived this Court of jurisdiction over this case in its entirety pending resolution of the appeal," Blanche wrote. "Therefore, a stay of all further proceedings is mandatory and automatic."
The U.S Court of Appeals for Washington D.C. is expected to announce dates for written briefs and oral arguments, although it has not yet said when it will set those dates.
Chutkan previously rejected giving Trump broad access to classified documents, describing it as a "fishing exercise." Chutkan is unlikely to grant a stay on the fraud trial, with jury selection fixed for February 2024.
The former president was indicted on four counts in Washington D.C. for allegedly working to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the run-up to the January 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol. Trump has pleaded not guilty to the charges, including conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding.
In her strongly-worded ruling on presidential immunity on December 1, Chutkan wrote that Trump lawyers were involved in a "logical fallacy" in saying that Trump cannot be prosecuted because he hasn't been impeached.
"From the statement 'if the animal is a cat, it can be a pet' it does not follow that 'if the animal is not a cat, it cannot be a pet.' Yet Defendant argues that because a President who is impeached and convicted may be subject to criminal prosecution, 'a President who is not convicted may not be subject to criminal prosecution'," Chutkan wrote.
She added that, "in addition to lacking textual or historical support", the Trump team's interpretation of the constitution's presidential immunity clause "collapses under the application of common sense." Trump does not have some divine right to escape prosecution, Chutkan said.
"Defendant's four-year service as Commander in Chief did not bestow on him the divine right of kings to evade the criminal accountability that governs his fellow citizens," she wrote.
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About the writer
Sean O'Driscoll is a Newsweek Senior Crime and Courts Reporter based in Ireland. His focus is reporting on U.S. law. ... Read more