Federal Appeals Court Rejects Trump’s Claim of Absolute Immunity - The New York Times (nytimes.com)
The ruling answered a question that an appeals court had never addressed: Can former presidents escape being held accountable by the criminal justice system for things they did while in office?
The three judges cast Mr. Trump’s immunity claims as a danger to the nation’s constitutional system.
“At bottom, former President Trump’s stance would collapse our system of separated powers by placing the president beyond the reach of all three branches,” they wrote. “Presidential immunity against federal indictment would mean that, as to the president, the Congress could not legislate, the executive could not prosecute and the judiciary could not review. We cannot accept that the office of the presidency places its former occupants above the law for all time thereafter.”
