Former President Donald Trump asked a court on Monday to dismiss Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis' case against him by claiming "absolute immunity" for any actions he took as part of his official duties as president.
Michael Anthony Kreis, a law professor at the Georgia State University College of Law, examined Trump's filing — and quickly concluded it wasn't worth the paper it was written on.
In particular, Kreis highlighted a Trump claim that trying him in Fulton County on racketeering charges would violate the United States Constitution's prohibition on trying a defendant twice for the same crimes.
"Trump moves to dismiss the Fulton case because, he claims, trying him for election crimes in Georgia after the 2020 election violates Double Jeopardy: he was already impeached and tried in the Senate for inciting an insurrection," Kreis wrote on Twitter. "This is so meritless it borders on the comical."
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In the first place, the Constitution makes clear that impeachment is a political process that does not preclude the possibility of also criminally charging a president once he's out of office.
What's more, even if this were not the case, it would not be double jeopardy for Trump to face state-based charges given that the impeachment process is done at a federal level.
And finally, noted Kreis, Trump was not charged federally with the crimes that Willis is alleging that he committed in his efforts to fraudulently overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.
In conclusion, Kreis wrote, "it would be absurd" for any court to accept this argument.
