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**Hugh** · 02-12-2023, 12:17

Quote:

U.S. judge rejects Trump immunity claim in Jan. 6 criminal prosecution

A federal judge on Friday rejected Donald Trump’s claim of “absolute immunity” from criminal prosecution for actions taken while he was president, setting the stage for a legal battle over presidential power probably headed to the U.S. Supreme Court and starting the clock ticking on whether the justices will agree to allow him to face trial in Washington before the 2024 election.

U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan denied Trump’s request to toss out his four-count August indictment on charges of conspiring to defraud the federal government’s election process, to obstruct Congress’s certification of the vote on Jan. 6, 2021, and to disenfranchise American voters.

“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 in the 48-page opinion. She said Trump may be subject to federal investigation, indictment, prosecution, conviction and punishment for any criminal acts undertaken while in office.

“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,” Chutkan added.

Chutkan said no court or any other branch of government has ever accepted Trump’s contention that former presidents enjoy “absolute immunity from criminal prosecution.” Nor, she said, was there any basis for Trump’s double jeopardy argument asserting he could not be prosecuted for a crime unless he had been impeached and convicted of those actions while in office. It defied the Constitution’s “plain meaning, original understanding, and common sense,” she wrote.