The Trump Defense: Why Experts Predict a DC Case Dismissal – Flopping Aces

A short while ago in federal court in Washington, D.C., President Trump filed a motion to dismiss the case pending against him there for his alleged actions in the aftermath of the 2020 elections. The motion cites presidential immunity as a ground to dismiss the case in its entirety. This is a very big deal.

The motion persuasively argues that the D.C. case should be dismissed, and if past practice is any guide all proceedings could and should be stayed while this issue is litigated fully. Notably, this same reasoning should apply to the ongoing Georgia prosecution as well.

A number of legal commentators have anticipated this move, and in this thread I’m going to get into the weeds and review the core argument made—that presidential immunity is an absolute bar to the prosecution of President Trump for his alleged acts in office that underlie the federal prosecution in D.C.

(A) Presidential Immunity

At its heart, President Trump is arguing that presidents, even after their terms in office are over, are absolutely immune from criminal prosecutions arising out of their acts in office that fall within the “outer perimeter” of their official responsibilities as president, unless they have first been both impeached and convicted by the House of Representatives and Senate. And he’s arguing that all of the acts he is alleged to have committed fall within this absolute immunity.

This view, as the motion filed today makes clear, is deeply rooted in bedrock legal principles, in caselaw, in the Constitution, and in actual practice dating back centuries.

In Nixon v. Fitzgerald, the Supreme Court ruled that a president has absolute immunity from civil liability for acts within the outer perimeter of their official responsibilities. In short, you cannot sue a former president personally because his official acts harmed you. This is unquestioned Supreme Court precedent, based on very serious, core separation of powers concerns. If a president were susceptible to civil suit for his official acts, the Court held that this would “raise unique risks to the functioning of government” in light of the “singular importance of the President’s duties.” The purpose of presidential immunity, the Fitzgerald Court’s view, is to prevent concerns about being sued clouding the president’s judgment and crippling his ability to act—presidents need to be able to discharge their duties to the best of their abilities without having to worry about being haled into court when their terms expire.

This well-established immunity doctrine has never been tested in the criminal context, for the simple reason that no president has been subjected to the sort of relentless prosecutions that President Trump has now been faced with, but the motion persuasively argues that the reasoning in Fitzgerald should still apply.