Trump denied immunity from 2020 election interference charges by appeals court: Live

Neal Katyal, former principal deputy solicitor general of the United States, doesn’t think that the Supreme Court will take the case. Here’s what he told MSNBC this morning:

What might the Supreme Court do next given the Trump team is expected to appeal the decision?

Steve Vladeck of the University of Texas School of Law believes the court has two options: “It can deny Trump’s forthcoming stay request, and clear the way for the prosecution to proceed quickly; or it can grant the stay—and expedite its review of the merits of today’s ruling, with a decision by June.”

He adds: “Either way, I expect the Court to rule on the stay application either late next week or early the week of February 19. So we should know a *lot* more about the timing of the next steps sometime in the next two weeks.”

“If immunity is not granted to a President, every future President who leaves office will be immediately indicted by the opposing party. Without complete immunity, a President of the United States would not be able to properly function! Deranged Jack Smith’s prosecution of President Trump for his Presidential, official acts is unconstitutional under the doctrine of Presidential Immunity and the Separation of Powers. Prosecuting a President for official acts violates the Constitution and threatens the bedrock of our Republic. President Trump respectfully disagrees with the DC Circuit’s decision and will appeal it in order to safeguard the Presidency and the Constitution.”

— Steven Cheung, spokesperson for Donald Trump

Here’s what the panel of judges had to say about the threat of indictments to former presidents:

Additionally, former President Trump’s “predictive judgment” of a torrent of politically motivated prosecutions “finds little support in either history or the relatively narrow compass of the issues raised in this particular case,” … as former President Trump acknowledges that this is the first time since the Founding that a former President has been federally indicted. Weighing these factors, we conclude that the risk that former Presidents will be unduly harassed by meritless federal criminal prosecutions appears slight.

Further on in their ruling the justices add:

It would be a striking paradox if the President, who alone is vested with the constitutional duty to ‘take care that the Laws be faithfully executed,’ were the sole officer capable of defying those laws with impunity.

Per the US District Court panel:

We cannot accept former President Trump’s claim that a President has unbounded authority to commit crimes that would neutralize the most fundamental check on executive power — the recognition and implementation of election results. Nor can we sanction his apparent contention that the Executive has carte blanche to violate the rights of individual citizens to vote and to have their votes count.

At bottom, former President Trump’s stance would collapse our system of separated powers by placing the President beyond the reach of all three Branches. 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. We cannot accept that the office of the Presidency places its former occupants above the law for all time thereafter.

Careful evaluation of these concerns leads us to conclude that there is no functional justification for immunizing former Presidents from federal prosecution in general or for immunizing former President Trump from the specific charges in the Indictment. In so holding, we act, “not in derogation of the separation of powers, but to maintain their proper balance.”

Did Donald Trump and his legal team get a heads-up on the appeals court decision?

Or was this Truth Social post from 11.25pm on Monday just part of his usual late-night online ranting?

A federal appeals court has ruled that Donald Trump does not have “immunity” from prosecution for crimes committed while he was in office, landing another major blow to his efforts to evade criminal charges for his attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

His attorneys are expected to swiftly appeal to the full bench of appeals court judges, or up to the US Supreme Court, teeing up another major constitutional test involving Mr Trump’s campaign at the nation’s highest court.

Last year’s federal grand jury indictment outlines a multi-state scheme from Mr Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 election, culminating in his failure to stop a mob’s violent breach of the US Capitol on January 6. He faces four criminal charges, including conspiracy and obstruction.

Donald Trump is not immune from prosecution over the election conspiracy charges against him, the US District Court for the District of Columbia has ruled in a 3-0 decision by the panel of judges.

“For the purpose of this criminal case, former President Trump has become citizen Trump, with all of the defenses of any other criminal defendant. But any executive immunity that may have protected him while he served as President no longer protects him against this prosecution.”

This is a developing story…

Republican senator JD Vance – who is reportedly being considered for Donald Trump’s potential administration – repeated baseless claims about the 2020 presidential election and falsely asserted that Trump as president could defy the US Supreme Court.

The Ohio senator told ABC News on Sunday that unlike then-vice-president Mike Pence, he would not have certified the results of the 2020 election, which he falsely claimed is the “legitimate way” to handle contested results from states that Trump lost.

There is no provision in the US Constitution to do so, nor is there any evidence of widespread election fraud that manipulated 2020’s outcome against Trump.

Here’s Alex Woodward on the storm of condemnation his comments have attracted.

President Joe Biden told a group of donors to his re-election bid on Sunday that the mere thought of his predecessor’s callous attitude towards the nation’s military veterans and honoured war dead forces him to expend extra energy to keep his anger in check.

Andrew Feinberg has more.

Speaking with ABC News in his first interview since dropping out of the Republican race about a month ago, the former New Jersey governor said a second Trump administration would amount to a “vendetta presidency” and have a massive personnel problem.

Gustaf Kilander has more.