BREAKING: Trump Turns To Supreme Court In Criminal Case - by Certified Paralegal and Legal Document Preparer Mark Smith, LL.M., CLDP

Former President Donald Trump asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday to stay a D.C. Circuit panel's ruling that he is not immune from federal charges for allegedly interfering in the 2020 presidential election.  The high court's intervention is needed to "forestall ... an unprecedented and unacceptable departure from ordinary appellate procedures," Trump argues, referring to the D.C. Circuit panel's order allowing the district court to move forward with proceedings even if the former president requested review by the entire bench. Trump wants the Supreme Court to grant a stay so that he can seek an en banc review with the D.C. Circuit. He adds the prosecution of a former president would be a "breach of precedent and historic norms" that the Supreme Court shouldn't allow.  "The threat of future criminal prosecution by a politically opposed administration will overshadow every future president's official acts – especially the most politically controversial decisions," Trump says.  A three-judge D.C. Circuit panel – comprising two Biden appointees and one H.W. Bush appointee – issued a unanimous per curiam opinion Feb. 6 rejecting Trump's assertion that he has so-called presidential immunity from prosecution for any official acts taken in the White House. The panel said Trump's claim for sweeping immunity "is unsupported by precedent, history or the text and structure of the Constitution." Trump is facing a four-count indictment in D.C. federal court that accuses him of undertaking a wide-ranging strategy to overturn the 2020 election results, including pressuring state lawmakers and organizing alternate slates of electors. He is charged with conspiring to defraud the U.S., conspiring to obstruct an official proceeding, obstructing an official proceeding and conspiring against citizens' right to vote. He contends the indictment must be tossed for three reasons. The courts, Trump claims, are powerless to review official presidential acts, public policy favors immunity and the U.S. Constitution bars the prosecution of former presidents who have not already been convicted through impeachment. The D.C. Circuit panel addressed each argument separately in a 57-page opinion, first finding Trump's reading of Marbury v. Madison to say that official presidential acts "can never be examinable by the courts" was incorrect. The foundational ruling allows for judicial review of "ministerial" actions that officials are bound by law to perform while prohibiting review of discretionary decisions, the panel said. Trump had no discretionary authority to defy "generally applicable" criminal laws and must be held "answerable in court for his conduct," the panel ruled. The public's interest in criminal accountability and the executive branch's interest in upholding presidential elections also outweigh any risks that Trump alleges would arise if former presidents could be criminally prosecuted, the appellate panel held. The judges rejected claims that future presidents wouldn't take necessary actions during their time in office due to a threat of post-term prosecution. "Presidential immunity against federal indictment would mean that, as to the president, the Congress could not legislate, the executive could not prosecute and the judiciary could not review," the panel said. "We cannot accept that the office of the presidency places its former occupants above the law for all time thereafter." Finally, the panel held that Trump's argument that the impeachment clause prohibits prosecution of former presidents who have not already been convicted through impeachment rests on a "logical fallacy." The clause was explicitly written to not limit an official's criminal liability, and it shouldn't be read any other way, the panel said. Trump is represented by John F. Lauro and Gregory M. Singer of Lauro & Singer, Todd Blanche and Emil Bove of Blanche Law, and D. John Sauer, William O. Scharf and Michael E. Talent of James Otis Law Group LLC. The federal government was represented at the D.C. Circuit by Jack Smith, J.P. Cooney, Michael R. Dreeben, James I. Pearce, Molly Gaston, Thomas P. Windom, Raymond N. Hulser, John M. Pellettieri and Cecil W. VanDevender of the U.S. Department of Justice's Special Counsel's Office. The case is Trump v. United States, case number 23A745, in the Supreme Court of the United States.