Trump attorney Will Scharf argued that former President Donald Trump’s elector battle was an “official act” and should fall under presidential immunity.
Mr. Scharf told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on Monday that some acts the former president committed would count as private acts and wouldn’t qualify for immunity, but his effort to orchestrate alternate electors during the 2020 election was an official task.
“We believe the assembly of those alternate slates of electors was an official act of the presidency,” Mr. Scharf said.
He added that Trump attorneys figure that special counsel Jack Smith is running into a roadblock in the election subversion battle.
“We believe that if the official conduct, the immune acts in the indictment are stripped away, that Jack Smith doesn’t have a case, that this case should be dismissed on that basis,” he said. “I don’t think there’s sufficient private conduct here to support the indictment, to support the ongoing prosecution, and that’s what we’re going to be litigating in front of the district court now.”
The Supreme Court ruled Monday that presidents have absolute immunity for actions that fall under official presidential duties, yet not for unofficial acts.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said it’s up to the lower courts to sort out which of Mr. Trump’s actions qualify for immunity.
Mr. Trump applauded the ruling minutes after it was announced. His legal team has started the process of seeing how the high court’s ruling could affect his other three criminal cases.
He has already argued that his conviction in the New York business-record case should be thrown out because of the Supreme Court’s decision. Manhattan prosecutors on Tuesday said they were OK with delaying sentencing to July 24, then Judge Juan Merchan pushed it back further to Sept. 18 “if such is still necessary.”
“Although we believe defendant’s arguments to be without merit, we do not oppose his request for leave to file and his putative request to adjourn sentencing pending determination of his motion,” prosecutors wrote in a letter to Judge Merchan.
• Mallory Wilson can be reached at mwilson@washingtontimes.com.
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