Trump's immunity for his attempt to reverse the results of the disputed election

Photo: Alex Brandon Associated Press Donald Trump has denounced a document “riddled with falsehoods” and accused the outgoing Democratic administration of “election interference.”

Agence France-Presse in Washington

Published yesterday at 7:28 p.m.

• United States

The special counsel prosecuting Donald Trump for trying to illegally overturn the results of the 2020 election says the Republican was acting as a candidate and therefore does not qualify for presidential immunity, in a document released Wednesday.

In a voluminous 165-page written argument, largely redacted to protect the anonymity of witnesses, presented last week to Judge Tanya Chutkan, prosecutor Jack Smith seeks to demonstrate the private nature of the acts for which the former Republican president is being prosecuted.

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According to him, these acts are therefore not covered by the broad criminal immunity granted to the president of the United States by the Supreme Court in a groundbreaking decision on July 1.

The document includes previously undisclosed evidence from the case, such as testimony from a senior White House official at the time about an overheard conversation between Trump and his wife, daughter, and son-in-law aboard the president’s helicopter.

“It doesn’t matter whether you won or lost the election, you have to fight like a dog,” Trump allegedly told them, according to testimony the prosecution plans to introduce at a future trial.

Following his loss in the 2020 presidential election to Democratic nominee Joe Biden, “with the help of private accomplices, the defendant embarked on a series of increasingly desperate schemes to reverse the legitimate results in seven states he had narrowly lost,” Jack writes. Smith.

These attempts culminated in the storming of the Capitol, the sanctuary of American democracy, by hundreds of Donald Trump supporters fired up, he recalls.

“The heart of the plot was private in nature. He largely used private actors and the structures of his campaign to try to reverse the results of the election and acted in a private capacity as a candidate,” the special prosecutor concludes.

The former president and current Republican candidate reacted to this publication in a series of outraged messages on his Truth Social network, denouncing a document “riddled with falsehoods” and accusing the outgoing Democratic administration of “election interference.”

By a majority of six to three—conservative justices against progressives—the Supreme Court held that the president enjoyed “no immunity for his unofficial acts” but was “entitled at least to a presumption of immunity for his official acts.”

Targeted by several criminal proceedings, Donald Trump is pulling out all the stops to be tried as late as possible, in any case after the vote on November 5.

If he were re-elected, he could, once inaugurated in January 2025, order the cessation of federal prosecutions against him.