Appeals court rejects Donald Trump’s claim of immunity from prosecution

Donald Trump has no immunity from prosecution as a former president and can be tried on charges of conspiring to overturn the 2020 election, a federal appeals court said on Tuesday in a landmark ruling.

A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said Trump’s claim that he is immune from criminal liability for actions he took while in the White House is “unsupported by precedent, history or the text and structure of the Constitution”.

“Former president Trump’s stance would collapse our system of separated powers by placing the President beyond the reach of all three Branches,” the judges said in a unanimous opinion. “We cannot accept that the office of the Presidency places its former occupants above the law for all time thereafter.”

The ruling is a major legal setback for Trump, 77, the front runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination and the first ex-president to be criminally indicted, and a spokesman said he plans to file another appeal.

Trump, in a post on his Truth Social platform, slammed the ruling and said it means “a President will be afraid to act for fear of the opposite Party’s Vicious Retribution after leaving Office”.