NRSC, Steve Daines back Trump in SCOTUS amicus brief, warn of ‘slippery slope’ for future presidents

FIRST ON FOX: The National Republican Senatorial Committee and Chairman Steve Daines, R-Mont., filed an amicus brief on Tuesday in support of former President Donald Trump’s presidential immunity appeal to the Supreme Court in the federal election interference case against him.

Trump’s attorneys in the federal case filed a brief on Tuesday on the matter, detailing the legal argument they plan to pursue during oral arguments before the court on April 25. 

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According to Trump’s defense, without the Supreme Court upholding a president’s right to immunity, it would “incapacitate every future President with de facto blackmail and extortion while in office, and condemn him to years of post-office trauma at the hands of political opponents.”

Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump gestures to supporters after speaking at a Get Out The Vote rally at Winthrop University on February 23, 2024 in Rock Hill, South Carolina. Former President Trump is campaigning in South Carolina ahead of the state’s Republican presidential primary on February 24.  (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

In the amicus brief, obtained by Fox News Digital, Daines and the NRSC slammed the D.C. Circuit Court’s opinion in its rejection of Trump’s immunity claim, calling the decision “akin to a loaded gun lying on the table that future litigants can now wield against Presidents (and former Presidents) of all political persuasions.”

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“The role of holding Presidents accountable for their actions in office lies with Congress, not the Courts. Democrats’ legal warfare against President Trump is a slippery slope that will lead our country down a dark path,” Daines said in a statement obtained by Fox News Digital. 

The committee argued that if the circuit court’s ruling is upheld, “each subsequent criminal prosecution of a former President will be easier than the first.”

The brief further posed a scenario in which President Biden might face the implications of such a decision. “What if a future Republican-appointed U.S. Attorney attempted to hold President Biden criminally responsible for his presidential policy of non-enforcement [on the southern border]?” Daines and the NRSC questioned. 

The committee cited the Immigration and Nationality Act’s broad terms, noting, “These sound like the kinds of ‘generally applicable criminal laws’ that the D.C. Circuit claims automatically remove issues from ‘within the scope of [the President’s] lawful discretion.’”

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“Such prosecutions need not be legally airtight to create headaches for the criminal justice system and former President Biden,” the brief continued in its warning. 

Former President Donald Trump and NRSC Chairman Steve Daines of Montana.  (Getty Images)

It also reiterated the example of former President Barack Obama’s potential vulnerabilities, which was brought up by Trump’s attorneys during the circuit court hearing, pointing to “the Obama administration’s killing of American citizens by drone strike.” 

“When family members of the Americans killed attempted to sue Obama administration officials for civil damages, their lawsuit was dismissed,” recalled the brief. 

But “Could they have obtained a different result through criminal avenues if they had been equipped with the D.C. Circuit’s new rule?” asked the NRSC and Daines. 

Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., speaks during a Senate Finance Committee hearing on the nomination of Xavier Becerra to be Secretary of Health and Human Services on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 24, 2021. (Michael Reynolds/Pool via AP) (Michael Reynolds/Pool via AP)

The amicus brief from Daines and the NRSC serves as further evidence of the party not only coalescing behind the former president, but also backing his legal battles. 

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The NRSC also filed an amicus brief in support of Trump’s challenge to Colorado’s removal of the former president from the state’s ballot. The Supreme Court unanimously ruled earlier this month that Trump must be restored to the ballot, reversing the decision of a lower court. 

Dozens of Republican lawmakers in the U.S. House and Senate also joined an amicus brief to support Trump in the matter.