READ: Trump Team Files Wild, Late-Night Legal Brief Arguing He Has ‘Absolute Immunity’ from Prosecution

Former President Donald Trump’s legal team beat the clock by less than an hour on Saturday — filing a brief to the D.C. Court of Appeals in the dead of night.

In the 71-page brief (which can be read in full here, via Politico), Trump’s lawyers laid out their case on why they believe the former president is immune from criminal prosecution. In the document, Attorney John Sauer and others on the Trump legal team claimed a president cannot be prosecuted criminally for an act he conducted in office unless he is first impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate for that act.

“President Trump’s acquittal by the Senate bars prosecution for the conduct alleged in the indictment,” Trump’s team wrote. “Further, the acquittal reinforces President Trump’s immunity argument. Where, as here, the question is the amenability of the President to prosecution for an official act, the political concerns are at their apex. Before any single prosecutor can ask a court to sit in judgment of the President’s conduct, Congress must have approved of it by impeaching and convicting the President. That did not happen here, and so President Trump has absolute immunity.”

As noted by Politico’s Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein, this argument would seem to be hindered dramatically by the 1974 pardon of former president Richard Nixon issued by then-President Gerald Ford. Per the Trump team’s interpretation of the law, that pardon wouldn’t have been necessary.

Still, the Trump lawyers tried to spin Ford’s action — arguing it actually supports their claim.

“President Ford’s issuance of a prophylactic pardon to prevent a potentially bitter, protracted, divisive prosecution of a former President … reinforces the political and constitutional tradition against prosecuting Presidents — it does not undermine it,” Trump’s lawyers said.

During the impeachment proceedings against Trump in 2021, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) notably argued against the premise Trump has the “absolute immunity” his lawyers claim.

“We have a criminal justice system in this country,” McConnell said on the Senate floor in February 2021. “We have civil litigation. And former Presidents are not immune from being held accountable by either one.”