Donald Trump’s lawyers request appeals court to rule on immunity in late-night filing

Donald Trump was the sitting president when he claimed the “alleged fraud and irregularity” in 2020 election, his lawyers have told a federal appeals court in arguing that he is immune from prosecution.

The attorneys also asserted in a filing that the “historical fallout is tremendous” from four-count indictment charging the former president with plotting to overturn the election he lost to Democrat leader Joe Biden.

No other former president has ever been indicted, while Trump has been indicted four times, in both federal and state court, as he campaigns to reclaim the White House.

In a brief filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, the attorneys wrote, “The indictment of President Trump threatens to launch cycles of recrimination and politically motivated prosecution that will plague our Nation for many decades to come and stands likely to shatter the very bedrock of our Republic – the confidence of American citizens in an independent judicial system.”

Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan sided with prosecution’s Jack Smith team as she rejected that argument saying that the office of the president “does not confer a lifelong ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ pass.”