MALAYMAIL
Donald Trump will try to persuade the US Supreme Court this week to reverse a judicial decision to kick him off the ballot in Colorado over his actions concerning the January 6, 2021, Capitol attack, arguing that the constitutional provision his opponents cite does not apply to him as a former president.
It may not be the only time Trump makes this type of assertion to the justices. As he fights four criminal cases and civil litigation in lower courts, Trump has repeatedly advanced a bold argument: that he is formally immune or otherwise not subject to these legal challenges.
“Trump appears obsessed with trying to place himself above the law. The theme running throughout these claims is that he cannot be held liable at law for anything he has done,” said constitutional law expert Michael Gerhardt, a University of North Carolina law professor. “No president or former president has made such outlandish, self-serving claims.”
The Supreme Court, whose 6-3 conservative majority includes three Trump appointees, on Thursday is scheduled to hear Trump’s appeal of a ruling by Colorado’s top court that disqualified him from the state’s Republican primary ballot under the US Constitution’s 14th Amendment for engaging in insurrection. He is the frontrunner for his party’s nomination to challenge Democratic President Joe Biden in the Nov. 5 US election.
While Trump has not asserted sweeping presidential immunity as a defense in that case, the Supreme Court still may have to confront the issue, including in criminal and civil actions over his attempts to overturn his 2020 election loss and defamation claims by a woman who accused him of rape.
Trump in the past has shown contempt for constraints on his actions. He famously said during his successful 2016 presidential campaign that he “could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters.”
In his effort to escape federal criminal charges involving his efforts to overturn his 2020 loss to Biden, a lawyer for Trump indicated to appellate judges that a president could order Navy commandos to assassinate a political rival and still be immune from prosecution unless first being impeached by the House of Representatives and convicted…
