The Washington, D.C., Court of Appeals decided to hear Donald Trump’s presidential immunity case—but only after a Bush-appointed judge sought to delay it until after the Supreme Court had made a decision.
Trump has long sought to delay his election interference case and claims he should have presidential immunity from prosecution. However, he isn’t seeking an immediate decision by the Supreme Court and wants to be able to use the appeal system first before going to America’s highest court.
Trump was indicted on four counts related to allegedly working to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the run-up to the January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. It is one of four criminal cases that Trump is facing while he campaigns as frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination. He has also pleaded not guilty to the charges in the other cases, denying any wrongdoing, and repeatedly said that they form part of a political witch hunt.
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In a decision on Monday, December 18, the three-judge Washington federal appeals court said it would hear oral arguments in Trump’s case on January 9.
But at the bottom of the order, it noted that Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson had sought a full Supreme Court judgment before deciding the case. Henderson has ruled in favor of Trump in a number of previous decisions.
“Judge Henderson would stay any further action by this court until the United States Supreme Court has taken final action on the Government’s petition for certiorari before judgment now pending before it in this case,” Monday’s order states.
Had Henderson succeeded, it would have delayed Trump’s case even further, as the Supreme Court would first have had to make a ruling, and then the case would have been passed down to the appeals court for decision.
Newsweek sought email comment on Tuesday from Judge Henderson’s office and from Trump’s attorney.
Eric Lisann, a lawyer and former federal prosecutor, noted that Henderson “a Bush I appointee” is “apparently in no hurry to rule on the immunity issue upon which the timely start of Trump’s criminal election interference depends. She prefers to keep that court unbriefed and unready if the Supreme Court decides to wait on her court. Fortunately her 2 co-panelist judges aren’t buying her approach,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter on Monday.
Henderson, who was appointed in 1990 by President George Bush, voted in 2020 to end the prosecution of Michael Flynn during an investigation into Trump’s alleged involvement with the Russian government.
In June 1986, the Reagan administration appointed Henderson a federal judge in South Carolina, where she served until her appointment to the D.C. Circuit.
In June, 2020, a divided Washington, D.C., appeals court ordered an immediate end to the prosecution of Michael Flynn, President Trump’s former national security adviser. Mr. Flynn’s defense lawyer, Sidney Powell, then asked the appeals court to terminate the case.
Henderson was joined in her decision by Judge Neomi Rao, a former White House official whom Mr. Trump appointed to the appeals court.
“The fact that the two of them turned out to be on the panel had been seen as a good sign for Mr. Flynn because each has proved more willing than the majority of their colleagues to interpret the law in Mr. Trump’s favor in other politically charged cases,” the New York Times wrote at the time.
The third judge in the case, Robert L. Wilkins, wrote a dissenting opinion in which he criticized Henderson and Rao for “grievously” overstepping their powers.
Powell, Trump and 17 others were later charged in Atlanta, Georgia, with election interference in the 2020 presidential election. Powell pled guilty on October 19 and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.