This past Tuesday, former President Donald Trump and his lawyers submitted a brief to the U.S. Supreme Court urging them to rule that he is absolutely immune from criminal charges relating to his attempts to overturn the 2020 Presidential Election. In the brief, Trump’s lawyers state the importance of presidential immunity as a way of ensuring the president can function without worry of being punished. The official case regarding Trump’s immunity will be argued on April 25.

I will concede that his lawyers do have a fair point in their explanation of the importance of the presidential immunity clause. Consider actually being the president and having to make tough decisions pretty much all the time. Consider for example, when former President Obama had to issue a killing for Osama Bin Laden. If Obama were a normal person in this country, he would be arrested for manslaughter, but, because he was president at the time, he was granted immunity. I will say though, the situation that former President Trump is in cannot be easily compared to the example I gave above. The January 6th coup attempt has much more complexities.

Trump has and is doing everything he can to delay his criminal proceedings until after the 2024 election. Considering the speed in which the Supreme Court is going through cases, he very may well succeed in that endeavor. Trump’s case will likely be argued in the fall, well past the election time. And if Trump does win office again, he could order the Justice Department to drop the charges. Not only is this case important, but the speed at which it happens is important as well.

A three judge panel in the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia also reviewed Trump’s brief. All three judges rejected the argument that Trump should receive absolute immunity. They stated that after Trump left office, he became a regular citizen in the eyes of the court and therefore any form of executive immunity no longer applies to him or his actions.

Trump’s lawyers have continued to argue that by ruling against absolute immunity will greatly threaten the integrity and independence of the president. They also brought forth the question that President Biden could not be immune for destroying the United State’s southern border. Jack Smith, the lead prosecutor of Trump, stated that by granting immunity, the court would threaten the democracy of our country. The threat in this case is clear, Trump tried to overturn an election and did in fact cause the transfer of power from one president to the next to become difficult.

I will be very interested to see how the Supreme Court rules in this case. I hope that they are able to argue it before the election because I do not think it would be fair for Trump to be able to just throw it out as soon as he gets in office. I do understand the threat it has on the role of the president though. With how polarized our political world is now, I know both Republicans and Democrats would use a ruling against presidential immunity to prosecute literally every president of the opposing party.