When you hear “Donald Trump” and “immunity,” you might think of his federal election interference case, which he’s trying to convince the Supreme Court to keep paused. But the former president has raised a similarly far-fetched claim in pretrial motions filed Thursday in his other federal case.
Trump’s lawyers argued to U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon that he’s immune in the classified documents case
because the charges turn on his alleged decision to designate records as personal under the Presidential Records Act (“PRA”) and to cause the records to be moved from the White House to Mar-a-Lago. As alleged in the Superseding Indictment, President Trump made this decision while he was still in office. The alleged decision was an official act, and as such is subject to presidential immunity.
Like the immunity argument he raised in Washington, D.C. — which a bipartisan appeals court panel roundly rejected — this latest gambit has absurd legal and practical implications. Recall that in the D.C. case, the oral argument revealed that granting Trump immunity would condone presidents ordering their rivals’ murder. Here, an upshot of Trump’s position is that presidents can walk off with whatever classified documents they want.
The former president lodged this latest immunity play alongside pretrial motions that include attempts to dismiss based on the Presidential Records Act (which I’ve explained doesn’t help him) and claims that the charges against him are too vague and that special counsel Jack Smith’s appointment and funding are unlawful.
There doesn’t seem to be much there there in this legal barrage, but it leaves plenty of room for mischief in the hands of Judge Cannon. Indeed, look at the delay Trump has gained so far in D.C. — and that’s with a judge who is eager to keep the case on track. As for the cockamamie immunity claim now pending in both cases, a rejection by the Supreme Court in the D.C. case could help to knock out at least part of Trump’s latest tactic in Florida. Subscribe to the Deadline: Legal Newsletter for weekly updates on the top legal stories, including news from the Supreme Court, the Donald Trump cases and more.
Jordan Rubin is the Deadline: Legal Blog writer. He was a prosecutor for the New York County District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and is the author of “Bizarro," a book about the secret war on synthetic drugs. Before he joined MS NOW, he was a legal reporter for Bloomberg Law.
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