Lawyers say ‘allegedly improper’ behavior by president falls within ‘outer perimeter’ of duties and is protected from prosecution

Lawyers for Donald Trump have urged a federal judge to dismiss the criminal case over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, advancing a sweeping interpretation of executive power that contends that former presidents are immune from prosecution for conduct related to their duties while in office.

The request to throw out the indictment, handed up earlier this year by a federal grand jury in Washington, amounts to the most consequential court filing in the case to date and is almost certain to precipitate a legal battle that could end up before the US supreme court.

In their 52-page submission to the presiding US district judge, Tanya Chutkan, Trump’s lawyers essentially argued that Trump enjoyed absolute immunity from criminal prosecution because the charged conduct fell within the so-called “outer perimeter” of his duties as president.

The filing contended that all of Trump’s attempts to reverse his 2020 election defeat in the indictment, from pressuring his vice-president, Mike Pence, to stop the congressional certification to organizing fake slates of electors, were in his capacity as president and therefore protected.

Whether Trump’s motion to dismiss succeeds remains uncertain: it raises novel legal issues, such as whether the outer perimeter test applies to criminal cases, and whether Trump’s charged conduct even falls within a president’s duties.

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      1 year ago

      Hes done that with all the criminal and civil cases except the rape one, in the documents he says hes allowed to have them under the presidential records act, the Ga call he says he says no one told him in the call he was doing something illegal so id doesn’t count, the hush payments he says its too late so it should be dropped and on the civil one in NY he says that’s how business is done and hes being persecuted. In short hes gotten away for so long with so much shit that he thinks he can do WHATEVER the fuck he wants and we are all wrong cause hes daddys super special boy. lmao seeing his dumb stupid face on the NY civil case was super satisfying he looks like hes constipated

      edit I forgot somehow that in the rape case he did say that ‘stars’ get away with it ‘fortunately or unfortunately’ and since hes a star so yea… there’s that