Liz Murrill, other Republican AGs, back Donald Trump in case | Local Politics – NOLA.com
Liz Murrill at her election party at Hilton Baton Rouge on Saturday, November 18, 2023.
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks at a Super Tuesday election night party, Tuesday, March 5, 2024, at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell) ORG XMIT: FLRB547
Liz Murrill at her election party at Hilton Baton Rouge on Saturday, November 18, 2023.
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks at a Super Tuesday election night party, Tuesday, March 5, 2024, at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell) ORG XMIT: FLRB547
Republican Attorney General Liz Murrill and 21 other state chief legal officers have urged the Supreme Court to carefully consider former President Donald Trump’s arguments as it weighs whether he is immune to prosecution for the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
Murrill and other Republican attorney generals said in friend-of-the-court briefs on Feb. 16 that their “states represent millions of Americans, many of whom worry that the timing of this prosecution was calculated to silence or to imprison President Biden’s political rival.”
The court has said it will hear arguments on April 22. Even if the justices ultimately rule against Trump, their intervention decision will delay his trial for several months, casting doubt on whether the criminal case could go to a jury before the fall presidential election campaign.
Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, was indicted by a grand jury in Washington on four felony counts that grew out of his efforts — some public and some behind closed doors — to prevent President Joe Biden from being certified as the winner of the 2020 election.
Seeking to block a trial, Trump’s lawyers argued that a former president is shielded from criminal charges for his “official acts” while in office.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan disagreed and said the Constitution provides no absolute immunity for former presidents, and the U.S. court of appeals affirmed her judgment in a 3-0 ruling.
On Feb. 12, Trump’s lawyers filed an emergency appeal urging the justices to keep the case on hold while their appeals could be considered. They said “President Trump’s claim that Presidents have absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for their official acts presents a novel, complex, and momentous question that warrants careful consideration on appeal. …If the prosecution of a President is upheld, such prosecutions will recur and become increasingly common, ushering in destructive cycles of recrimination.”
Murrill and other attorneys general said the court should not “greenlight the prosecution to proceed at breakneck speed and to put the apparent front runner for the presidency on trial in the lead up to the election.”
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