Trump 'definitely should lose' bid for immunity in Georgia case: legal expert

Donald Trump may be hoping the U.S. Supreme Court bails him out of his Georgia indictment.

Federal law allows U.S. officials to move state prosecutions to federal court if their actions are related to their work for the federal government, and Trump is likely to join former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and the ex-president's former lawyer Rudy Giuliani in making that request, reported USA Today.

"In making such a claim, Trump could rely in part on an 1890 Supreme Court case involving a U.S. Marshal named David Neagle who was assigned to protect Justice Stephen Field while he was hearing cases in California," the newspaper reported. "Neagle shot and killed a man who assaulted the justice over breakfast. California charged Neagle with murder."

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"But the Supreme Court ruled Neagle 'cannot be guilty' of a state crime for an act he was authorized to carry out under federal law," the report added.

Meadows has already argued that the crimes he's accused of committing in Georgia were carried out as a function of his governmental duties, and Trump is expected to make the same case.

"They're all going to raise it," said Eric Segall, a law professor at Georgia State University. "Trump is going to argue that he and all his merry people were simply ensuring the integrity and fairness of federal elections, something they had an obligation to do, and therefore he has immunity."

Laws protecting federal officials from state prosecution serve an important function, Segall said, raising an example of federal officials working to desegregate the South in the Civil Rights era being charged with crimes by racist state officials, but he said Trump's actions don't warrant immunity.

But Segall said it would be a stretch for Trump to argue his calls to overturn the result were done in any official capacity as president.

"He might win, but he definitely should lose," Segall said.