Trump Claims ‘Absolute Immunity’ Based On His Own Bonkers Election Fraud Dossier In Last-Ditch Appeals Court Pitch

Former President Donald Trump claimed “absolute immunity” in a last-ditch appeals court filing that repeatedly cited a bonkers election fraud dossier full of wild and often debunked claims.

Late on Tuesday evening, Trump’s team filed a 41-page brief to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in support of their immunity claim that cited one of Trump’s social media posts, as well as the 32-page report he shared in that post. The report lists no author and contains a host of false, misleading, baseless, or unverified claims about the 2020 election that Trump lost to President Joe Biden.

In a section headlined “The Government’s Statement of Facts Is Legally and Factually Incorrect,” they wrote:

The government’s brief (at 3) omits the vigorous disputes and questions about the actual outcome of the 2020 Presidential election—disputes that date back to November 2020, continue to this day in our nation’s political discourse, and are based on extensive information about widespread fraud and irregularities in the 2020 election. See, e.g., Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump), Truth Social (Jan. 2, 2024), https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/111687076142669367 (sharing the report Summary of Election Fraud in the 2020 Presidential Election in the Swing States, https://cdn.nucleusfiles.com/e0/e04e630c-63ff-4bdb-9652- e0be3598b5d4/summary20of20election20fraud20in20the20swing20states.pdf); see also id. at 4 (published analysis reporting that “investigations across the country have uncovered an avalanche of irregularities, unlawful activity, manipulation of election records, destruction of evidence, and fraud” in the 2020 election).

And in case that was not compelling enough, Trump’s lawyers go on to cite themselves, citing the report that Trump cited in his social media post as evidence Trump’s statements were not “knowingly false”:

Next, the government argues that President Trump’s public statements and communications were supposedly “knowingly false.” Resp.Br.51-52. The government’s empty assertion is utterly false. President Trump was carrying out his duties as Chief Executive to investigate the overwhelming reports of widespread election fraud. See supra, Part I (citing Summary of Election Fraud). Nevertheless, absolute immunity would apply even if the challenged statements were allegedly false and “actuated by malice on the part of the [speaker],” which they are not in this case. Barr, 360 U.S. at 568; id. at 569; see also Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. at 756; Gregoire, 177 F.2d at 581

The Supreme Court and the appeals court will each get a crack at the issue of presidential immunity after Judge Tanya Chutkan denied two motions to dismiss based on First Amendment and presidential immunity claims. The appeals court will hear oral arguments on January 9.