Supreme Court rejects to put Donald Trump's immunity case on fast track
Also Read: Donald Trump disqualified from Colorado's presidential primary ballot | What it means for 2024 US elections? The Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, including three justices nominated by Trump, denied the request in a one-line order that did not provide any reason for the decision. The 77-year-old, the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, is currently scheduled to go on trial on March 4, 2024 on charges of conspiring to overturn the November 2020 election won by Democrat Joe Biden.
Trump's attorneys have continuously tried to push back the trial until after the election of the next year, citing the ex-president's "absolute immunity" from prosecution for acts committed while in the White House. US District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is to preside over Trump's March trial, rejected the immunity claim on December 1, saying a former president does not have a "lifelong 'get-out-of-jail-free' pass." "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," she added.
Trump's lawyers appealed Chutkan's decision to the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit and Smith, the special counsel, asked the Supreme Court to step in and hear the case itself. "This case presents a fundamental question at the heart of our democracy: whether a former President is absolutely immune from federal prosecution for crimes committed while in office," Smith said in a filing to the Supreme Court.
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