‘No One Is Above The Law’: CNN Legal Expert Trashes Trump’s Immunity Appeal Just Minutes After It’s Filed

CNN Legal Expert Norm Eisen predicted that former President Donald Trump’s presidential immunity argument in his January 6th DC trial “will probably” fail on appeal.

Trump is appealing a ruling from U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan that he is not protected from prosecution of criminal charges relating to his attempts to over the 2020 election under presidential immunity. Presidential immunity is used to protect the president from civil lawsuit while in office; however, it is legally untested whether it also applies to criminal charges.

The Republican frontrunner filed the appeal on Thursday while asking the courts to pause his criminal proceedings in DC until his arguments are considered by the appeals court. If convicted of the current charges, Trump could face decades behind bars for conspiring to obstruct the certification the 2020 election.

Eisen noted that Trump’s immunity motion is a “serious legal argument” but doubts the appeals court will overturn Chutkan’s decision.

Unlike some of the arguments we just heard, this is not frivolous or made up. There’s a serious legal question here, one that Trump has lost and that he probably will lose again on appeal. This is something I worked on when I was in the White House counsel’s office. Presidents cannot normally be the subject of a legal proceeding. It’s called presidential immunity. It typically applies in the civil case. Trump tried in his federal prosecution for alleged election overthrow here in D.C. to take that civil rule and apply it in a criminal case and say, ‘Hey, Jack Smith, I’m the president, you can’t prosecute me.’ Judge Chutkan said no. That’s a maniacal idea. No one is above the law. If you break the law, you’re a president. You get to be prosecuted. Now, he’s appealing that to the D.C. Circuit. He’s going to try to get a stay. There will be a big fight about it. But fundamentally, I think Judge Chutkan was right. I’ve written about this, including for CNN. It’s inimical to American law that there would be one person in our country who is never able to be held accountable for violating criminal laws simply because they’re president. He also lost an important immunity decision in the civil context. But in criminal, it’s even more important he’ll fail. But it’s a real issue. It’s going to occasion a lot of attention. There’ll be a big fight over whether the whole thing should be stayed. So it’s something else. We’ll be watching together in the weeks ahead.

Watch the full segment above via CNN.