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      Special Counsel Asks Supreme Court to Decide if Trump Is Immune From Prosecution

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      The special counsel, Jack Smith, urged the justices to move with exceptional speed, and they quickly agreed to fast-track the first phase of the case.Jack Smith, the special counsel prosecuting former President Donald J. Trump on charges of plotting to overturn the 2020 election, asked the Supreme Court on Monday to rule on Mr. Trump’s argument that he is immune from prosecution. The justices quickly agreed to fast-track the first phase of the case.Mr. Smith’s request was unusual in two ways: He asked the justices to rule before an appeals court acted, and he urged them to move with exceptional speed.“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 or is constitutionally protected from federal prosecution when he has been impeached but not convicted before the criminal proceedings begin,” Mr. Smith wrote.On Monday evening, just hours after Mr. Smith filed papers in the Supreme Court, the justices granted his initial request: to put their consideration of whether to hear the case on a fast track. The court ordered Mr. Trump’s lawyers to file their response to the petition seeking review on an abbreviated schedule, by Dec. 20.Mr. Smith’s filings represented a vigorous plea to keep the trial on track by cutting off an avenue by which Mr. Trump could cause delays.A speedy decision by the justices is of the essence, Mr. Smith wrote, because Mr. Trump’s appeal of a trial judge’s ruling rejecting his claim of immunity suspends the criminal trial. The proceeding is scheduled to begin on March 4 in Federal District Court in Washington.Any significant delays could plunge the trial into the heart of the 2024 campaign season or push it past the election, when Mr. Trump could order the charges be dropped if he wins the presidency.“The United States recognizes that this is an extraordinary request,” Mr. Smith wrote. “This is an extraordinary case.”The trial judge, Tanya S. Chutkan, rejected Mr. Trump’s sweeping claims that he enjoyed “absolute immunity” from the election interference indictment because it was based on actions he took while in office.In her ruling two weeks ago, she condemned his attempts to “usurp the reins of government” and said there was nothing in the Constitution or American history supporting the proposition that a former president should not be bound by the federal criminal law.Mr. Trump appealed the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He also asked Judge Chutkan to freeze the election interference case in its entirety until the appeal was resolved.In his Supreme Court brief, Mr. Smith conceded that the election case could not be decided until after the appeal of the immunity issue was resolved. On Sunday, his team filed papers to Judge Chutkan asking her to keep the March 4 trial date and saying she could still work on certain aspects of the case even as the appeal was being heard.In what appeared to be an attempt to cover all bases, Mr. Smith’s team also filed a request to the appeals court in Washington on Monday to decide the immunity question quickly. Winning the appeal of the immunity decision was only one of Mr. Trump’s goals in challenging Judge Chutkan’s ruling. All along, he and his lawyers have had an alterative strategy: to delay the trial for as long as possible.If the trial were put off until after the election and Mr. Trump were to win, he could have his attorney general simply dismiss the charges. Holding a trial after the presidential race was over would also mean that voters would not get to hear any of the evidence that prosecutors have collected about Mr. Trump’s expansive efforts to reverse the results of the last election before weighing in on whether to elect him again in 2024.Even if Mr. Trump’s lawyers are unable to postpone the trial until after the presidential race was decided, they are hoping to push it off until the heart of the campaign season in August or September.That would present Judge Chutkan with a difficult decision: Should she hold the trial at a time Mr. Trump could be out holding rallies and meeting voters and suffer what are sure to be his vociferous complaints or make the decision herself to delay the trial after the race is over?Mr. Smith urged the justices to move fast.He asked the court to use an unusual procedure to leapfrog the appeals court, “certiorari before judgment.” It has been used in cases involving national crises, like President Richard M. Nixon’s refusal to turn over tape recordings to a special prosecutor or President Harry S. Truman’s seizure of the steel industry.The procedure used to be rare. Before 2019, the court had not used it for 15 years, according to statistics compiled by Stephen Vladeck, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin. As of late last year, he found, the court has used it 19 times since.Among recent examples in which the court bypassed appeals courts were cases on abortion, affirmative action and student debt forgiveness.A statement from Mr. Trump’s campaign called the request by Mr. Smith a “Hail Mary” attempt to get to the Supreme Court and “bypass the appellate process.”Derek Muller, a law professor at Notre Dame, said the procedure remained unusual.“It’s always a long-shot bid for the Supreme Court to hear a case like this, without waiting for the process to play out in the lower courts,” he said. “That said, Smith is rightly concerned about a slow appeals process that may interfere with a trial date and run even closer to Election Day. It seems unlikely it will persuade the Supreme Court to intervene, but it is worth asking given the risks of delay.”Mr. Smith’s request was based on an argument that prosecutors have used several times in the election interference case: that the public itself, not just the defendant, Mr. Trump, has a fundamental right to a speedy trial.As in the Nixon tapes case, Mr. Smith wrote, “the circumstances warrant expedited proceedings,” adding: “The public importance of the issues, the imminence of the scheduled trial date and the need for a prompt and final resolution of respondent’s immunity claims counsel in favor of this court’s expedited review at this time.”Mr. Smith asked the Supreme Court to consider a question it has never addressed before: whether the Constitution confers presidential immunity from criminal prosecution.Mr. Smith acknowledged that the Supreme Court said in 1982 that former presidents enjoy some special protections, at least in civil suits — ones from private litigants seeking money — and that the Justice Department has long taken the view that sitting presidents cannot be indicted.“But those principles cannot be extended to provide the absolute shield from criminal liability that respondent, a former president, asserts,” Mr. Smith wrote. “Neither the separation of powers nor respondent’s acquittal in impeachment proceedings lifts him above the reach of federal criminal law. Like other citizens, he is accountable for criminal conduct.”Mr. Trump’s lawyers rely heavily on the 1982 decision, also involving Nixon, Nixon v. Fitzgerald. It was brought by an Air Force analyst who said he was fired in 1970 in retaliation for his criticism of cost overruns. By the time the Supreme Court acted, Nixon had been out of office for several years.By a 5-to-4 vote, the justices ruled for Nixon. “In view of the special nature of the president’s constitutional office and functions,” Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr. wrote for the majority, “we think it appropriate to recognize absolute presidential immunity from damages liability for acts within the ‘outer perimeter’ of his official responsibility.”Other Supreme Court precedents seem to be of no help to Mr. Trump.In Clinton v. Jones in 1997, the court unanimously allowed a sexual harassment suit against President Bill Clinton to proceed while he was in office, discounting concerns that it would distract him from his official responsibilities. That was also a civil case.And more recently, the Supreme Court ruled by a 7-to-2 vote in Trump v. Vance in 2020 that Mr. Trump had no absolute right to block the release of his financial records in a criminal investigation.“No citizen, not even the president, is categorically above the common duty to produce evidence when called upon in a criminal proceeding,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote for the majority.In separate court papers filed on Monday, prosecutors working for Mr. Smith told Judge Chutkan that they intend to call expert witnesses during the election interference trial who will testify about the movement on Jan. 6 of Mr. Trump’s supporters from his incendiary speech near the White House — during which he urged them to “fight like hell” — to the Capitol.Prosecutors said they also planned to call a witness who could talk about the specific times that day when Mr. Trump’s Twitter account was in use.That could mean that the government will seek to provide the jury with the connections between Mr. Trump’s speech and his Twitter messages on Jan. 6 and the movement of the mob toward the Capitol. More

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      Appeals Court Says Jan. 6 Suits Against Trump Can Proceed for Now

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      The court left open the possibility that the former president could still prevail in his effort to claim immunity from civil cases seeking to hold him accountable for the violence.A federal appeals court ruled on Friday that civil lawsuits seeking to hold former President Donald J. Trump accountable for the violence that erupted at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, can move forward for now, rejecting a broad assertion of immunity that Mr. Trump’s legal team had invoked to try to get the cases dismissed.But the decision, by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, left open the possibility that Mr. Trump could still prevail in his immunity claims after he makes further arguments as to why his fiery speech to supporters near the White House on Jan. 6 should be considered an official presidential act, rather than part of his re-election campaign.The Supreme Court has held that the Constitution gives presidents immunity from being sued over actions taken as part of their official duties, but not from suits based on private, unofficial acts. The civil cases brought against Mr. Trump have raised the question of which role he was playing at the rally he staged on Jan. 6, when he told supporters to “fight like hell” and urged them to march to the Capitol.Essentially, the appeals court ruled that at this stage of the case, that question has yet to be definitively answered. It said Mr. Trump must be given an opportunity to present factual evidence to rebut the plaintiffs’ claims that the rally was a campaign event — scrutinizing issues like whether campaign officials had organized it and campaign funds were used to pay for it.“Because our decision is not necessarily even the final word on the issue of presidential immunity, we of course express no view on the ultimate merits of the claims against President Trump,” Judge Sri Srinivasan wrote for the panel.He added: “In the proceedings ahead in the district court, President Trump will have the opportunity to show that his alleged actions in the run-up to and on Jan. 6 were taken in his official capacity as president rather than in his unofficial capacity as presidential candidate.”The panel’s decision to allow the three civil cases to proceed for now in Federal District Court in Washington adds to the array of legal woes that Mr. Trump is facing as he runs again for president.The ruling comes as the former president has mounted a parallel effort to get the criminal indictment he faces on charges of plotting to overturn the 2020 election dismissed based on a similar claim of immunity. The federal judge overseeing that case rejected those claims on Friday night.After the Capitol attack, a number of plaintiffs, including members of Congress and police officers who were caught up in or injured during the riot, filed lawsuits against Mr. Trump, blaming him for inciting the mob on Jan. 6 with the speech he gave that day.Mr. Trump sought to have the cases dismissed at the outset for several reasons, including a claim that his act of speaking to the public about a matter of public concern was an official action, so he was immune from being sued over it. The plaintiffs, by contrast, maintained that the rally and speech were campaign events.When considering a motion to dismiss, judges decide whether a lawsuit should be thrown out even if they assume that everything plaintiffs claim is true. In February 2022, the trial judge, Amit P. Mehta, rejected Mr. Trump’s arguments and allowed the case to proceed. Mr. Trump then appealed Judge Mehta’s ruling.The appeals court acknowledged that legal precedents have long protected a president from being sued for actions undertaken as part of his job. But it rejected Mr. Trump’s categorical view that any time a president is speaking about matters of public concern, it should be considered an official act.“When a first-term president opts to seek a second term, his campaign to win re-election is not an official presidential act,” Judge Srinivasan wrote. “The office of the presidency as an institution is agnostic about who will occupy it next. And campaigning to gain that office is not an official act of the office.”Kristy Parker, a lawyer for Protect Democracy, which is helping to represent two Capitol Police officers who sued Mr. Trump, praised the decision. “This decision is a significant step forward in establishing that no one is above the law, including a sitting president,” she said.Joe Sellers, who represented the congressional plaintiffs, said the ruling was “a crucial step closer to holding the former president accountable for the harm brought on members of Congress and on our democracy itself.”Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Mr. Trump’s campaign, said the court’s decision was “limited, narrow and procedural,” adding that “the facts fully show that on Jan. 6 President Trump was acting on behalf of the American people, carrying out his duties as president of the United States.”The appellate panel that issued the decision included two appointees of Democratic presidents, Judge Srinivasan, who wrote the main 54-page opinion, and Judge Judith W. Rogers, who filed a narrower concurring opinion. She agreed with most of the main opinion, but thought a section that instructed Judge Mehta about how to evaluate whatever additional facts arise was unnecessary.The third member was Judge Gregory G. Katsas, who was appointed by Mr. Trump. He also filed a shorter concurring opinion, stressing that courts should try to sort through the ambiguity by looking at objective factors, like whether White House or campaign resources were used to organize and pay for the rally, rather than trying to parse Mr. Trump’s motives.The issue of presidential immunity is also an important aspect of Mr. Trump’s attempts to invalidate the election interference indictment filed against him in Washington by the special counsel, Jack Smith.The Justice Department has long maintained a policy that sitting presidents cannot be charged. But Mr. Trump’s motion to dismiss the criminal case on grounds that his actions were official ones was a remarkable attempt to extend the protections afforded to the presidency in his favor.Mr. Trump’s lawyers essentially claimed that all of the steps he took to subvert the election he lost to President Biden were not crimes, but rather examples of performing his presidential duties to ensure the integrity of a race he believed had been stolen from him.Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, who is overseeing the criminal case, had little patience for such arguments in her ruling on Friday, saying that neither the Constitution nor American history supported the contention that a former president enjoyed total immunity from prosecution.If Mr. Trump’s lawyers challenge her decision, as expected, they will most likely have to make a detailed finding to the appeals court that his efforts to overturn the outcome in 2020 were not undertaken as part of his re-election campaign but rather in his official role as chief executive.Win or lose, the lawyers are hoping that a protracted appeal will require moving the election trial — now set to start in March — until after the 2024 election is decided. More

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      Trump Seeks Dismissal of Federal Election Case, Claiming Immunity

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      Donald Trump’s lawyers asked a judge to throw out charges that he conspired to overturn the 2020 election, arguing that a president could not be criminally prosecuted for official acts.Lawyers for former President Donald J. Trump asked a judge on Thursday to throw out a federal indictment accusing him of conspiring to overturn the 2020 election and claimed that because the charges relate to actions he took as president, he should be “absolutely immune from prosecution.”The request to dismiss the election interference indictment, which came in a 52-page briefing filed in Federal District Court in Washington, was breathtaking in its scope. It argued that Mr. Trump could not be held accountable in court for any actions he took as president, even after a grand jury had returned criminal charges against him.While the Justice Department has long maintained a policy that sitting presidents cannot be indicted, Mr. Trump’s bid to claim total immunity from prosecution was a remarkable attempt to extend the protections afforded to the presidency in his favor.His motion to dismiss was certain to result in a pitched legal battle with prosecutors in the office of the special counsel, Jack Smith, if only because the idea that a president cannot be prosecuted for actions undertaken in his official capacity as commander in chief has never before been tested.The motion, which will be considered by Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, was also the first — but likely not the last — attempt by Mr. Trump’s lawyers to attack the charges in the election interference case directly.Until now, the lawyers have largely waged a series of unsuccessful procedural battles, seeking, and failing, to push back the trial until 2026 and to disqualify Judge Chutkan.In his filing, John F. Lauro, a lawyer for Mr. Trump, immediately sought to reframe the core of Mr. Smith’s case. He argued that the former president’s repeated lies that widespread fraud had marred the vote count and other steps he took to subvert the normal course of the democratic process were, in fact, “efforts to ensure election integrity.”Those efforts, Mr. Lauro argued, were “at the heart of” Mr. Trump’s “official responsibilities as president” and so should not be subject to criminal charges.“Here, 234 years of unbroken historical practice — from 1789 until 2023 — provide compelling evidence that the power to indict a former president for his official acts does not exist,” Mr. Lauro wrote. “No prosecutor, whether state, local or federal, has this authority; and none has sought to exercise it until now.”Over and over in his motion, Mr. Lauro sought to flip the story told by the indictment and portray the various steps that Mr. Trump took to subvert the election as official acts designed to protect its integrity.John F. Lauro, a lawyer for Mr. Trump, argued that the charges in a federal indictment were related to Mr. Trump’s actions while president, which should be “absolutely immune from prosecution.”Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA, via ShutterstockThe indictment detailed, for example, how Mr. Trump tried to enlist the Justice Department in validating his claims of fraud. It set out evidence of his pressuring state lawmakers to draft false slates of electors saying he had won states he actually lost. And it documented how he waged a campaign to persuade his own vice president, Mike Pence, to unilaterally declare him the victor in the race during a certification at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.But all of these actions, Mr. Lauro wrote, fell within the scope of Mr. Trump’s “official duties” as president and so were “immune from criminal prosecution.”Only a handful of precedents exist that could help guide Judge Chutkan in making a decision about such broad claims of immunity, and none are perfectly on point.In 1982, the Supreme Court ruled by a 5-to-4 margin that former President Richard M. Nixon was absolutely immune from a civil suit arising from his official actions. But while Mr. Lauro cited that case, Nixon v. Fitzgerald, extensively in his filing, the reasoning in its majority opinion did not address whether presidential actions could be prosecuted as crimes.Before he was appointed as Mr. Trump’s final attorney general, William P. Barr wrote an apparently unsolicited memo claiming that presidents could not be charged with crimes for abusing their official powers.The memo was ultimately given to the lawyers defending Mr. Trump in the investigation into Russian election interference led by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III. In it, Mr. Barr concluded that Mr. Mueller should not be permitted to investigate Mr. Trump for obstruction of justice.This summer, the Justice Department announced it would no longer argue that Mr. Trump’s derogatory statements about the writer E. Jean Carroll were made as part of his official duties as president. A few months earlier, Ms. Carroll had won $5 million in damages in a trial accusing Mr. Trump of sexual abuse and defamation over comments he made after he left the White House. She is now trying to push forward a separate lawsuit over comments that he made while president.Last month, a judge in Atlanta rejected an attempt by Mark Meadows, Mr. Trump’s former White House chief of staff, to move a case accusing him and others, including Mr. Trump, of tampering with the election in Georgia from state court to federal court.Mr. Meadows had also sought to claim immunity against the charges. But the judge overseeing the case ruled that the steps he took in helping Mr. Trump overturn the election were not part of his official White House duties, but were instead political efforts to help Mr. Trump get re-elected.Alan Rozenshtein, a former Justice Department official who teaches at the University of Minnesota Law School, said the key question facing Judge Chutkan would be whether to accept Mr. Trump’s attempt to reframe the accusations as presidential acts that were beyond the scope of prosecution.It was a shrewd legal gambit, Mr. Rozenshtein said, because it played off a legitimate presidential duty under the Constitution: to faithfully execute federal law.“He will lose,” Mr. Rozenshtein said. “But he is making the correct conceptual argument.” More

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      Will Trump Face a Legal Reckoning in Georgia?

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      Over 2,300 text messages to and from Mark Meadows, a former chief of staff for Donald J. Trump, offer stunning real-time details of the efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Not least among the revelations are Mr. Meadows’s repeated overtures to the Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, with Mr. Meadows pressing the Georgian to be in communication with the White House.Mr. Trump and Mr. Raffensperger eventually spoke, resulting in Mr. Trump’s now-infamous demand that the secretary “find 11,780 votes” — just one more vote than Joe Biden’s margin of victory in the state.On May 2 we see the latest consequence of those efforts: the opening of a special grand jury by District Attorney Fani Willis in Fulton County, Ga., to gather evidence relating to possible criminal charges against Mr. Trump and others associated with him. As important as congressional investigations are, Ms. Willis’s work may present the most serious prospect of prosecution that Mr. Trump and his enablers are facing.We understand that after Robert Mueller’s investigation and two impeachments, the prospect of Mr. Trump actually facing accountability may be viewed with skepticism. Most recently, he seems to have avoided charges by the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg.But Ms. Willis, a Democrat, has a demonstrated record of courage and of conviction. She has taken on — and convicted — a politically powerful group, Atlanta’s teachers, as the lead prosecutor in the city’s teacher cheating scandal.And she is playing with a strong hand in this investigation. The evidentiary record of Mr. Trump’s postelection efforts in Georgia is compelling. It is highlighted by a recording of Mr. Trump’s Jan. 2, 2021, call with Mr. Raffensperger, in which Mr. Trump exhorted Mr. Raffensperger to “find” those votes.The tape also contains threats against the secretary and his staff that had an element of coercion, like Mr. Trump’s warning that failing to identify (nonexistent) fraud would be “a big risk” to Mr. Raffensperger and to his lawyer. The recording is backed by voluminous evidence that Mr. Trump likely knew full well he had lost, including acknowledgment from administration officials like his attorney general, William P. Barr, and an internal Trump campaign memo admitting that many fraud claims were unfounded. As a federal judge noted in finding that Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the election were likely criminal, the former president “likely knew the justification was baseless and therefore that the entire plan was unlawful.”What’s more, Georgia criminal law is some of the most favorable in the country for getting at Mr. Trump’s alleged misconduct. For example, there is a Georgia law on the books expressly forbidding just what Mr. Trump apparently did in Ms. Willis’s jurisdiction: solicitation of election fraud. Under this statute, a person commits criminal solicitation of election fraud when he or she intentionally “solicits, requests, commands, importunes or otherwise attempts to cause” another person to engage in election fraud.The decision to impanel a special grand jury is itself another indicator of the peril Mr. Trump may face. Under Georgia practice, special purpose grand juries are typically used for focused investigation of a matter and have the power to subpoena witnesses. Special grand juries develop expertise in a single case over a sustained period (here up to 12 months), as opposed to regular grand juries, which hear many matters over a shorter period. Unlike regular grand juries, the special grand jury cannot issue an indictment, but any charging recommendations are presented by a district attorney to a regular grand jury, which can then indict based on the special grand jury’s work.The special grand jury will begin issuing subpoenas for some of the 30 or so witnesses who have refused requests for voluntary interviews. Those initial witnesses will then be served and will start appearing in June. Mr. Trump and those closest to him have a history of rushing to court to fight subpoenas, but they are unlikely to be given the opportunity in this first wave. Careful prosecutors usually start with less controversial witnesses, and Ms. Willis is a careful prosecutor. If Mr. Trump or those closest to him are served, that is when subpoenas are most likely to be challenged in court — but that is probably months away.If Mr. Trump is charged, it will set off a legal battle. There are substantial legal defenses that Mr. Trump could attempt. He could argue that he has constitutional immunity from prosecution for his acts while president, that his words were protected by the First Amendment or even that he acted in absolute good faith because he genuinely believed that he had won.The judicial system will ultimately decide if these defenses will work. But soliciting election fraud is not within the scope of official presidential duties protected by immunity, the First Amendment does not protect criminal activity, and a president cannot successfully claim good faith when he was repeatedly told by his own officials that there was no fraud. Still, no one should consider the case a slam-dunk.The case also in no way diminishes the importance of the House of Representatives’ Jan. 6 committee. In fact, the committee will most likely aid the Georgia prosecution while going about the business of its own investigation. (Ms. Willis and the committee have reportedly already been in contact.) For example, litigation with Mr. Meadows disclosed key details of the alleged plot to overturn the Georgia election. An email the committee filed from one of the lawyers helping Mr. Trump, Cleta Mitchell, included a detailed 11-point memo about overturning the election. Operating outside Washington, Ms. Willis might have taken years to obtain that email and other evidence like it.Jury trials, which both of us have tried and supervised, are living events, and success is never assured. But in Georgia, if it reaches that stage, the evidence is strong, the law is favorable, the prosecutor is proven, and the cause — democracy itself — is just.Norman Eisen, a senior fellow at Brookings and the executive chair at the States United Democracy Center, was special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during the first Trump impeachment and is the author of “Overcoming Trumpery.” Donald Ayer, a former U.S. attorney in the Reagan administration and deputy attorney general in the George H.W. Bush administration, is an adjunct professor at Georgetown Law and on the advisory board of States United.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      U.S. Declines to Defend Trump Ally in Lawsuit Over Jan. 6 Riot

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      The move could mean that the Justice Department is also unlikely to defend former President Donald J. Trump in the case.WASHINGTON — The Justice Department declined on Tuesday to defend a congressional ally of former President Donald J. Trump in a lawsuit accusing them both of inciting supporters at a rally in the hours before the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol.Law enforcement officials determined that Representative Mo Brooks, Republican of Alabama, was acting outside the scope of his duties in an incendiary speech just before the attack, according to a court filing. Mr. Brooks had asked the department to certify that he was acting as a government employee during the rally; had it agreed to defend him, he would have been dismissed from the lawsuit and the United States substituted as a defendant.“The record indicates that Brooks’s appearance at the Jan. 6 rally was campaign activity, and it is no part of the business of the United States to pick sides among candidates in federal elections,” the Justice Department wrote.“Members of Congress are subject to a host of restrictions that carefully distinguish between their official functions, on the one hand, and campaign functions, on the other.”The Justice Department’s decision shows it is likely to also decline to provide legal protection for Mr. Trump in the lawsuit. Legal experts have closely watched the case because the Biden Justice Department has continued to fight for granting immunity to Mr. Trump in a 2019 defamation lawsuit where he denied allegations that he raped the writer E. Jean Carroll and said she accused him to get attention.Such a substitution provides broad protections for government officials and is generally reserved for government employees sued over actions that stem from their work. In the Carroll case, the department cited other defamation lawsuits as precedent.The Brooks decision also ran counter to the Justice Department’s longstanding broad view of actions taken in the scope of a federal employee’s employment, which has served to make it harder to use the courts to hold government employees accountable for wrongdoing.Mr. Brooks did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Lawyers for the House also said on Tuesday that they declined to defend Mr. Brooks in the lawsuit. Given that it “does not challenge any institutional action of the House,” a House lawyer wrote in a court filing, “it is not appropriate for it to participate in the litigation.”The Justice Department and House filed their briefs on Tuesday, the deadline set by Judge Amit P. Mehta of the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia. The lawsuit, filed in March by Representative Eric Swalwell, Democrat of California, accuses Mr. Brooks of inciting a riot and conspiring to prevent a person from holding office or performing official duties.Mr. Swalwell accused Mr. Brooks, Mr. Trump, his son Donald Trump Jr. and his onetime personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani of playing a key role in inciting the Jan 6. attack during a rally near the White House in the hours before the storming of the Capitol.Citing excerpts from their speeches, Mr. Swalwell accused the men of violating federal law by conspiring to prevent an elected official from holding office or from performing official duties, arguing that their speeches led Mr. Trump’s supporters to believe they were acting on orders to attack the Capitol.Mr. Swalwell alleged that their speeches encouraged Mr. Trump’s supporters to unlawfully force members of Congress from their chambers and destroy parts of the Capitol to keep lawmakers from performing their duties.During the rally, Mr. Brooks told attendees that the United States was “at risk unlike it has been in decades, and perhaps centuries.” He said that their ancestors “sacrificed their blood, their sweat, their tears, their fortunes and sometimes their lives” for the country.“Are you willing to do the same?” he asked the crowd. “Are you willing to do what it takes to fight for America?”Mr. Swalwell said defendants in his lawsuit had incited the mob and had continued to stoke false beliefs that the election was stolen.“As a direct and foreseeable consequence of the defendants’ false and incendiary allegations of fraud and theft, and in direct response to the defendants’ express calls for violence at the rally, a violent mob attacked the U.S. Capitol,” Mr. Swalwell said in his complaint. “Many participants in the attack have since revealed that they were acting on what they believed to be former President Trump’s orders in service of their country.”In June, Mr. Brooks asked that the Justice Department defend him in the case. He cited the Westfall Act, which essentially substitutes the Justice Department as the defendant when federal employees are sued for actions deemed within the scope of their employment, according to a court document.He described his speech on Jan. 6 as part of his job, saying that his duties include delivering speeches, making pronouncements on policy and persuading lawmakers.The Justice Department rejected that assertion.“Inciting or conspiring to foment a violent attack on the United States Congress is not within the scope of employment of a representative — or any federal employee — and thus is not the sort of conduct for which the United States is properly substituted as a defendant under the Westfall Act,” the department wrote. “Brooks does not argue otherwise. Instead, he denies the complaint’s allegations that he conspired to incite the attack on the Capitol.”Mr. Trump has not sought to have the government substitute for him as a defendant in the lawsuit under the Westfall Act. But he has argued in court filings that the statements he made on Jan. 6 are covered by broad immunity, that he could not be sued for making them and that the lawsuit violated his free speech rights.Should a judge deny Mr. Trump’s claims, he could ask the Justice Department to intervene on his behalf. But its decision in Mr. Brooks’s case lowered the chances that it would comply. More

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      E.U. Parliament Strips Carles Puigdemont of Immunity

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyCatalan Separatist Leader Loses Immunity, Clearing Way for Spain’s Extradition BidCarles Puigdemont has been charged with sedition for leading a 2017 independence bid. His European Parliament membership had shielded him from prosecution.A television showing Carles Puigdemont at the European Parliament in Brussels on Tuesday.Credit…Francisco Seco/Associated PressRaphael Minder and March 9, 2021Updated 8:33 a.m. ETMADRID — The European Parliament has stripped the immunity of Carles Puigdemont, the former separatist leader of Catalonia, clearing the way for Spain to make a fresh attempt to extradite him from Belgium and try him on sedition charges.The European Parliament said on Tuesday that a majority of its members had voted a day earlier in a secret ballot to remove the immunity of Mr. Puigdemont and two other Catalan members of the assembly who face charges in Spain related to a botched attempt to declare Catalonia’s independence in 2017. Spain’s judiciary has charged that their bid was unconstitutional.The vote on Monday ended a lengthy battle by Mr. Puigdemont and his colleagues to use their protection as elected members of the European assembly to shield them from prosecution in Spain. Now it is up to the Belgian judiciary to rule on whether Mr. Puigdemont should be sent back to the Spanish capital, Madrid, to stand trial.“It is a sad day for the European Parliament,” Mr. Puigdemont said. “We have lost our immunity, but the European Parliament has lost more than that and as a result, European democracy too,” he said, adding that this was “a clear case of political prosecution.”The Spanish government welcomed the vote.“The problems of Catalonia will not be solved in Europe or by Europe. They have to be solved in Spain by bringing all Catalan forces around the table,” said the foreign minister, Arancha González Laya. The vote showed that the European Parliament had “respect for the work of the judiciary in our country,” she added.The European Parliament’s decision comes only weeks after regional elections in Catalonia that increased the majority of pro-independence parties in the regional Parliament. Separatist politicians have held control since 2015, but the secessionist conflict has split Catalan society while also remaining a highly contentious issue in national politics.A polling station in Barcelona last month. Regional elections increased the majority of pro-independence parties in the Catalonian Parliament.Credit…Emilio Morenatti/Associated PressMr. Puigdemont and some of his colleagues have been in Brussels since October 2017, shortly after the Spanish central government ousted his regional government for holding a referendum that Spanish courts had ruled illegal and then declaring Catalonia’s independence.During the past three years, Mr. Puigdemont has successfully fought off attempts to extradite him both from Belgium and Germany, where he was briefly detained during a trip.In January, judges in Belgium also rejected a request to extradite another former member of Catalonia’s regional government, Lluis Puig, who is facing similar charges in Spain. The Belgian court argued that the Spanish Supreme Court did not have the legal authority to issue an arrest warrant against Mr. Puig, adding that he should be tried in a regional court.Part of Mr. Puigdemont’s former government, however, stayed in Spain and stood trial before the country’s Supreme Court. Nine Catalans received prison sentences after they were convicted of crimes including sedition and misuse of public funds.One former Catalan leader, Oriol Junqueras, was also barred by Spain’s highest court from taking his seat in the European Parliament. Both he and Mr. Puigdemont were elected to the assembly in 2019.The European Parliament’s vote will allow a Spanish judge to reactivate a European arrest warrant against Mr. Puigdemont that was suspended in early 2020, when Mr. Puigdemont and his colleagues took their seats in the European assembly.The Catalan leaders are not the first members of the European Parliament to be stripped of immunity.In 2019, the European Parliament stripped the immunity of Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder of the far-right National Front party in France. It is still reviewing the case of Ioannis Lagos, who was sentenced in Greece last year for his activities with the far-right Golden Dawn party. The Greek government considers Golden Dawn a criminal organization.The Catalan case has divided politicians in Brussels, many of them loathe to set a precedent of lawmakers being tried over political activity. The removal of Mr. Puigdemont’s immunity was approved by three-fifths of the members of the European Parliament.It could take months for Belgian courts to rule on Spain’s latest attempt to extradite Mr. Puigdemont and the two other Catalan leaders, Antoni Comín and Clara Ponsatí.The Brussels Public Prosecutor’s Office is examining the possibility of renewing legal proceedings in Belgium, a spokeswoman for the office said.Should the Belgian courts block the extradition request, the Catalans would continue to sit in the European Parliament, but without special immunity rights.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Israeli Government Collapses, Forcing 4th Election in 2 Years

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyIsraeli Government Collapses, Forcing 4th Election in 2 YearsA protracted political crisis revolving around Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s legal troubles brings down the coalition government.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “I’m not afraid of elections. We’re ready for them. We’ll win.”Credit…Pool photo by Ronen ZvulunDec. 22, 2020Updated 5:09 p.m. ETJERUSALEM — Israel’s government collapsed Tuesday, pushing the country into yet another early election — the fourth in two years.The Israeli Parliament dissolved itself at midnight on Tuesday. The move forced a new election after weeks of infighting and paralysis in the so-called unity government, an uneasy coalition sworn in just seven months ago that paired Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s conservative Likud party with his main rival-turned-partner, Benny Gantz of the centrist Blue and White party.Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Gantz blamed each other for the crisis.“I think at the current time, we should have united forces to find a way to avert these needless elections,” Mr. Netanyahu said in Parliament early Tuesday as he tried, and failed, to seek a delay in its dissolution.A new election must take place in three months and is scheduled for March 23. But an election date in the late spring or summer, once the coronavirus vaccination campaign is well underway, might have been more advantageous for Mr. Netanyahu.Parliament automatically dispersed at midnight after failing to meet the legal deadline for approving a budget for 2020. Mr. Netanyahu, whose party holds the finance portfolio, had refused to present a budget, in violation of his coalition agreement with Mr. Gantz — the ostensible reason for the government breakdown.But at the heart of the crisis lies a deep, mutual distrust between the two men and a country fundamentally split over the fate of Mr. Netanyahu, whose corruption trial is scheduled to move into an intensive, evidentiary stage in early 2021, requiring his regular presence in court. He has been charged with bribery, fraud and breach of trust. He denies any wrongdoing.Benny Gantz, left, and Mr. Netanyahu have blamed each other for the crisis that has brought their government to the point of collapse.Credit…Pool photo by Tal ShaharAnalysts said that Mr. Netanyahu was gambling on another election in the hope of forming a right-wing, religious government that would grant him some kind of immunity from prosecution.“It’s not the budget, stupid,” said Reuven Hazan, a professor of political science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Mr. Netanyahu “needs a government that will pass legislation either to delay his case for the foreseeable future or cancel it altogether,” he added.But failing to present a budget and forcing the dispersal of Parliament provides him with an escape hatch from the coalition agreement stipulating that Mr. Gantz should take over as prime minister 11 months from now. From the inception of the unity government, few people, including Mr. Gantz, expected Mr. Netanyahu to honor that agreement.Mr. Gantz’s party, for its part, refused to back any compromise with Mr. Netanyahu over the authority for making key appointments, including for the posts of attorney general and state attorney. A compromise would have violated Blue and White’s flagship policy of upholding the rule of law but would have kept the government on life support.Mr. Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, who is renowned for his political savvy, quickly pivoted into campaign mode.“The majority of the citizens of Israel see our leadership and our tremendous achievements,” he said in a televised address on Tuesday evening. “We are bringing in millions of vaccinations, delivering historic peace agreements, curbing the Iranian threat and turning Israel into one of the world’s leading economies.”Mr. Gantz said his party had entered Mr. Netanyahu’s government, despite paying a high political price, “to serve the best interests of the country, given the needs and scale of the moment.”“Unfortunately,” he added, “we found no partner on the other end.”A demonstrator was detained in Jerusalem this month during a protest against Mr. Netanyahu and his handling of the coronavirus crisis.Credit…Amir Cohen/ReutersThe current government will remain in place in a caretaker capacity until after the election and the formation of a new government, a process that could take many months.Both Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Gantz are taking a considerable political risk by going back to the polls.The unity government was formed as a last resort after three inconclusive elections ended without any one candidate being able to muster a parliamentary majority. While Mr. Netanyahu and his Likud party were far ahead in the polls a few weeks ago, a new conservative challenger, Gideon Saar, has shaken things up.Mr. Saar, who lost to Mr. Netanyahu in a Likud leadership race a year ago, recently defected from the party and set up a rival one called New Hope. Drawing support from disenchanted voters from both the right and the political center, Mr. Saar’s move has muddied any clear path back to power for Mr. Netanyahu, according to recent opinion polls, meaning that Israel’s political morass may persist even beyond a new election.Mr. Gantz’s Blue and White party had already lost the bulk of its popular support after it broke its campaign promise and entered into government with a prime minister under indictment. Critics say that Mr. Gantz, a former army chief, is a weak and indecisive party leader and that his two-year political career is all but over.“I think he needs to get up and go,” Professor Hazan, the political science expert, said.Damning him further, Mr. Netanyahu said that he had actually reached a compromise with Mr. Gantz on Monday on the issue of appointments and authorities, but that rebels within the Blue and White party, including the justice minister, Avi Nissenkorn, had blocked Mr. Gantz from making the deal.Miki Zohar, a Likud official, said Blue and White was committing “political suicide.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More