Trump’s Latest Gamble Is Outlandish—but It Just Might Work

Former President Donald Trump’s legal team went big in their latest effort to derail the prosecution against him for conspiring to interfere in the 2020 election: They filed a motion to dismiss that could be called a motion to make U.S. presidents into kings.

The 52-page legal motion filed in the D.C. case asks U.S. District Judge Tonya Chutkan to dismiss the indictment based on the concept of “presidential immunity” that Trump argues makes him immune from any criminal prosecution for acts he took as president. The legal precedent underlying the motion is that presidents have been immune from civil lawsuits over actions taken while they served as president and Justice Department policy that sitting presidents cannot be indicted while in office. But Trump seeks to expand this immunity from civil lawsuits for money and DOJ’s policy of forbearance from prosecuting a sitting U.S. president into a limitless doctrine of executive immunity that would green light nearly any criminal actions committed by a president.

Trump’s lawyers argue that Special Counsel Jack Smith’s charges against Trump must be dismissed because, “Here, 234 years of unbroken historical practice–from 1789 until 2023– provide compelling evidence that the power to indict a former president for his official acts does not exist.” While they are right that it has never been done before–arguably because no president has shown such brazen disregard for the law–the historical fact that it has not been done before adds nothing to the legal basis for the defense.

Read more at The Daily Beast.