WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal appeals panel ruled Tuesday that Donald Trump can face trial on charges that he plotted to overturn the results of the 2020 election, sharply rejecting the former president’s claims that he is immune from prosecution while setting the stage for additional challenges that could further delay the case.

The ruling is significant not only for its stark repudiation of Trump’s novel immunity claims but also because it breathes life back into a landmark prosecution that had been effectively frozen for weeks as the court considered the appeal. Yet the one-month gap between when the court heard arguments and issued its ruling has already created uncertainty about the timing of a trial in a calendar-jammed election year, with the judge overseeing the case last week canceling the initial March 4 date.

Trump’s team vowed to appeal, which could postpone the case by weeks or months — particularly if the Supreme Court agrees to take it up. The appeals panel, which included two appointees by President Joe Biden and one Republican-appointed judge, gave Trump a week to ask the Supreme Court to get involved.

The eventual trial date carries enormous political ramifications, with special counsel Jack Smith’s team hoping to prosecute Trump this year and the Republican front-runner seeking to delay it until after the November election. If Trump were to defeat Biden, he could presumably try to use his position as head of the executive branch to order a new attorney general to dismiss the federal cases he faces or potentially could seek a pardon for himself.

Tuesday’s unanimous ruling is the second time since December that judges have held that Trump can be prosecuted for actions undertaken while in the White House and in the run-up to Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob of his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol.

The opinion, which had been expected given the skepticism with which the panel greeted the Trump team’s arguments, was unsparing in its repudiation of Trump’s novel claim that former presidents enjoy absolute immunity for actions that fall within their official job duties.

“For the purpose of this criminal case, former President Trump has become citizen Trump, with all of the defenses of any other criminal defendant,” the court wrote. “But any executive immunity that may have protected him while he served as President no longer protects him against this prosecution.”

The judges said the public interest in criminal accountability “outweighs the potential risks of chilling Presidential action,” turning aside the claim that a president has “unbounded authority to commit crimes” that would prevent the recognition of election results or violate the rights of citizens to vote.

“We cannot accept that the office of the Presidency places its former occupants above the law for all time thereafter,” the judges wrote.

A Trump spokesman said Tuesday that Trump would appeal the ruling “in order to safeguard the Presidency and the Constitution.” And in a post on Truth Social after the ruling was issued, Trump insisted that a president “must have Full Immunity in order to properly function and do what has to be done for the good of our Country.”

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit took center stage in the immunity dispute after the Supreme Court in December said it was at least temporarily staying out, rejecting a request from Smith’s team to take up the matter quickly and issue a speedy ruling. But the high court could yet decide to act on a Trump appeal.

There is no timetable for the Supreme Court to act, but the justices are likely to seek Smith’s input before deciding whether to keep the legal rulings against the former president in place. If the court declines to consider the appeal, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan would be able to restart the trial proceedings.

If on the other hand the Supreme Court accedes to Trump’s request, any timetable it establishes would determine how much longer the trial might be delayed. If the court grants Trump’s request without speeding up the appeals process, Trump would likely have until early May before he would need to file his full appeal. But the justices could set much quicker deadlines for reaching a final decision.

The Supreme Court has previously held that presidents are immune from civil liability for official acts, and Trump’s lawyers have for months argued that that protection should be extended to criminal prosecution as well.

They said the actions Trump was accused of in his failed bid to cling to power after he lost the 2020 election, including badgering his vice president to refuse to certify the results of the election, all fell within the “outer perimeters” of a president’s official acts.

But Smith’s team has said that no such immunity exists in the U.S. Constitution or in prior cases and that, in any event, Trump’s actions weren’t part of his official duties.

Chutkan, who is presiding over the case, rejected Trump’s arguments in a December opinion that said the office of the president “does not confer a lifelong ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ pass.”

Trump’s lawyers then turned to the D.C. appeals court, but Smith asked the Supreme Court to weigh in first, in hopes of securing a fast and definitive ruling and preserving the March 4 trial date. The high court declined the request, leaving the matter with the appeals court.

The case was argued before Judges Florence Pan and J. Michelle Childs, appointees of Biden, a Democrat, and Karen LeCraft Henderson, who was named to the bench by President George H.W. Bush, a Republican.

The judges made clear their skepticism of Trump’s claims during arguments last month, when they peppered his lawyer with questions and posed a series of extreme hypotheticals to test his legal theory of immunity — including whether a president who directed Navy commandos to assassinate a political rival could be prosecuted.

Trump’s lawyer, D. John Sauer, answered yes — but only if a president had first been impeached and convicted by Congress. That view was in keeping with the team’s position that the Constitution did not permit the prosecution of ex-presidents who had been impeached but then acquitted, like Trump.

The case in Washington is one of four prosecutions Trump faces as he seeks to reclaim the White House. He faces federal charges in Florida that he illegally retained classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate, a case that was also brought by Smith and is set for trial in May.

He’s also charged in state court in Georgia with scheming to subvert that state’s 2020 election and in New York in connection with hush money payments made to porn actor Stormy Daniels. He has denied any wrongdoing.

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As Donald Trump became the first former president to face federal charges, he and his supporters went through a familiar routine of mounting a victimhood defense in the face of unprecedented allegations of wrongdoing. But this time, the stakes are higher.

Trump upped the level of his claims and threats as he faces the potential of years in prison if convicted on 37 charges of obstruction, illegal retention of defense information and other violations. Hours after pleading not guilty, Trump claimed he is being targeted by the special prosecutor, who is nonpartisan, for political reasons and vowed to retaliate against President Joe Biden if he is elected president in 2024.

“There was an unwritten rule” to not prosecute former presidents and political rivals, Trump told supporters in a speech at his golf club in New Jersey. “I will appoint a real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt president in the history of America, Joe Biden, and go after the Biden crime family.”

The vow is reminiscent of the “lock her up” chants against Democrat Hillary Clinton that Trump led during his 2016 campaign, but the new level of specificity alarmed many experts.

“If he did that, it’d be an authoritarian system, the end of a system of laws rather than of one man,” said Lindsay Chervinsky, a presidential historian.

Even as he pledges to retaliate if elected, Trump and his supporters claim he is being targeted in a way that is similar to authoritarian regimes — such as in Russia, where opponents of President Vladimir Putin have been jailed, or Venezuela, where President Nicolas Maduro’s chief rival was prosecuted. There is no evidence that Biden made the sort of pledge to target Trump that the former president has now made, and the president said he has never tried to influence the Justice Department on any case.

Trump’s attacks on the justice system are the latest step in a now eight-year campaign by the former president and his allies against the traditions and institutions that have helped maintain American democracy.

Trump has long complained about being unfairly treated by the legal system, from contending that the judge in a lawsuit against his for-profit university was biased against him to targeting the FBI over its probe of Russian interference in his 2016 win. He even vowed retribution in that case, assigning a special prosecutor to review how the investigation into his campaign’s possible coordination with Russia was handled, which led to only one conviction.

That track record makes his pledge of retribution more menacing, said Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, a group advocating for better government.

“He has shown repeatedly during his presidency that he is perfectly willing to misuse and abuse his office to carry out purely personal activities,” Wertheimer said.

Stephen Saltzburg, a former top official in the criminal division of the Justice Department who is now a George Washington University law professor, said Trump was signaling that he would use the department to settle scores — just the thing he is claiming led to his indictment.

“This is typical of what Donald Trump does,” Saltzburg said. “He essentially accuses people of doing what he would do if he were in the position.”

The indictment came from a grand jury in Trump’s adopted state of Florida after an investigation led by a special counsel, Jack Smith, who is independent of political appointees in the Biden administration and has previously prosecuted Democrats as well as Republicans. Speaking after the indictment was made public, Smith stressed that investigations such as the one into the documents follow the facts and the law.

“We have one set of laws in this country, and they apply to everyone,” he said.

Many experts, of all political persuasions, said the charges against Trump stem from the proper functioning of the legal system, rather than a political vendetta. William Barr, Trump’ s former attorney general, said the allegations in the indictment were serious and that Trump had no right to keep such documents.

“There is not an attorney general of either party who would not have brought today’s charges against the former president,” Michael Luttig, a former federal judge who was a conservative favorite for a Supreme Court post, wrote on Twitter.

According to the indictment, Trump held onto classified documents after leaving the White House, admitted on tape that they were classified and that he no longer had the presidential power to declassify them, then refused to return the records when the government demanded them back.

The former president’s complaints about being persecuted, if not his vow of retribution, have been taken up by a wide swath of Republicans, from longtime supporters in Congress to governors who position themselves as moderates. That includes Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who bemoaned on Twitter what he called “a two-tiered justice system where some are selectively prosecuted, and others are not.”

Another sign of how the right has absorbed Trump’s world view came Tuesday night, hours after his court appearance, when Fox News briefly captioned images of Biden and Trump with the words “wannabe dictator speaks at the White House after having his political rival arrested.” The network took down the chyron and said in a statement the matter was “addressed” without providing further details.

Trump’s complaints about being persecuted are standard for former political leaders in other countries who are charged with crimes, said Victor Menaldo, a political scientist at the University of Washington.

“It makes sense politically if the leader has a rabid support group like Trump,” Menaldo said. But in other countries, he said, the leaders are usually successfully prosecuted, and democracy continues.

The federal charges against Trump come two months after the Manhattan District Attorney’s office charged him with 34 counts of falsifying business information in arranging payments to a porn star who said she had an affair with him. He also faces legal jeopardy in Fulton County, Georgia, where local prosecutors have launched a wide-ranging investigation of his attempt to have the state’s electors assigned to him even though he lost the state to Biden in 2020, a result that was affirmed multiple times. A federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., continues to probe Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 loss.

The Manhattan charges have drawn skepticism even from some Trump critics, who contend they’re legally dubious. Trump’s defenders — who include much of his own political party — don’t make that distinction, condemning all probes of the former president. Indeed, after taking control of the House of Representatives following November’s elections, Republicans empaneled a committee investigating the so-called “weaponization of government” against conservatives that is highlighting perceived injustices in the Trump probes.

The combination of the new federal charges, filed Friday, and the Republican presidential primary has led to stepped up complaints about scrutiny of the former president.

“I, and every American who believes in the rule of law, stand with President Trump against this grave injustice,” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy tweeted after Trump announced the indictment against him. “House Republicans will hold this brazen weaponization of power accountable.”

He and other Trump allies note that Biden also improperly had classified documents from his time as vice president — though there are big differences with the Trump case. The current president returned the records when requested and there is no evidence that he tried to conceal more, as is alleged with Trump. A second special prosecutor is looking at Biden’s document handling.

Former U.S. Attorney Roscoe Howard said he has faith that the public will see past those protestations in the current case just by looking at the indictment.

“You can read it and make a determination of whether he’s violating the law. And anybody who does the same thing, we treat them the same way,” Howard said. “When you peel back some of the arguments we’re hearing, it is a bit like, ‘Oh I don’t have to follow these rules.’”

That’s the point when it comes to Trump, said Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a historian at New York University who studies authoritarians.

“It’s an old situation he’s in, but now because this is extremely serious, of course he’s going to ramp up that narrative,” Ben-Ghiat said. “What strongmen do is, if you are corrupt, you need to get back into power to shut down all the institutions that can harm you.”

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The District Attorney’s office says the program will promote community-based treatment to assist homeless defendants suffering from mental illness, substance abuse disorders and other problems.

The Riverside County Partnership for the Homeless Outreach Mediation and Education is for those facing sentencing for non-violent crimes and aims to reduce homelessness and crime through supervision, support and treatment.

AP News

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“You will learn that Jose Vladimir Larin Garcia is the executioner,” said Samantha Paixao, Deputy District Attorney, Riverside County, addressing the jury in court.

“The executioner” was a phrase Deputy District Attorney Paixao used several times during her opening statement to describe accused killer Jose Larin-Garcia.

“Each victim suffered a gunshot wound to their head…all four were executed,” said Paixao. The prosecution says on the night of the murders; Larin-Garcia was in a car with three of the four victims. Paixao said Yuliana Garcia was driving, Juan Duarte Raya was in the passenger seat and Jacob Montgomery and Larin-Garcia were both in the backseat. She says the four were driving in Duarte Raya’s green Toyota Corolla, and that direct Facebook messages reveal Jacob Montgomery was going to sell drugs to the fourth victim, Carlos Campos Rivera. “These are the last known messages these two engaged in,” said Paixao.

Paixao said when the Corolla approached the agreed upon meeting spot in Palm Springs around 11:30 that night, shots were fired — killing Carlos Campos Rivera. A witness said the Corolla then sped away. The four inside the Corolla were heading down E. Sunny Dunes Rd. when a witness heard additional gunshots. Paixao said it was at that moment that Larin-Garcia shot and killed the other three inside the car.

“They didn’t stand a chance. There was the element of surprise. There was determination and there was an execution that was occurring inside that car,” said Paixao. She says Larin-Garcia jumped out of the moving Corolla before it crashed.

She says police found him hiding under a truck without his shoes, and that a later investigation revealed he had the blood of both Montgomery and Duarte Raya on those shoes.

While no gun was recovered from the scene, the prosecution says investigators found ammunition in Larin-Garcia’s bedroom.

“The ammunition is consistent with the ammunition of the 9 millimeter weapon that was used for all four of the murders,” said Paixao.

Larin-Garcia was taken to Desert Regional Medical Center the night of the murders, where he fled. He was arrested by police at a bus stop in the following days.

In court on Monday, Larin-Garcia appeared calm. He did not turn to face the victims’ families or press that were present.

The defense is expected to deliver their opening statement on Tuesday at 9 a.m. Larin-Garcia could face the death penalty in this case, if convicted. Watch News Channel 3 at 5 and 6 p.m. on Tuesday for the latest developments in court.

ORIGINAL REPORT: Trial begins on Monday for Jose Larin-Garcia, a Cathedral City man facing a possible death sentence for allegedly murdering four people in Palm Springs more than two years ago.

Watch News Channel 3 at 5 & 6 p.m. for a closer look at what happened in court today. You can follow along with the proceedings as News Channel 3’s Madison Weil live tweets from the courtroom.

Four victims, ages 17 to 25, were found shot and killed in Palm Springs just before midnight on February 3rd, 2019.

Three of the victims were found inside a car that crashed at Sunny Dunes and El Placer roads. “I heard this terrible noise about 11:30 at night…it was sort of a crash and a screeching noise,” a neighbor told News Channel 3 at the time.

The fourth victim was discovered in the street a few blocks away. Court documents reveal all four victims were shot twice in the head.

When police arrived at Sunny Dunes and Desert Way, police found Larin-Garcia hiding under a truck. He appeared intoxicated and covered in blood.

“They told him to get up from under the truck and the next thing the ambulance showed up and they were working on the fella. And then they just took him away,” another neighbor told News Channel 3.

We now know Larin-Garcia was taken to Desert Regional Medical Center for treatment. Security footage shows him running away from the property.

Detectives have testified he then went to a friend’s house who he had buy him a one-way bus ticket to Florida using a fake name. Prosecutors say he was preparing to flee – shaving his head and beard to change his appearance. He was arrested waiting at the bus stop.

In 2019, News Channel 3 spoke to family and friends of the victims.

“Right now is the time when we show everyone love and respect because they didn’t deserve this death,” said a family friend of Yuliana Garcia.

Larin-Garcia is charged with four counts of murder. He also faces a special-circumstance allegation of committing multiple murders, opening him to the death penalty if convicted.

Opening statements are expected to begin at 9 a.m. on Monday at the Larson Justice Center in Indio. News Channel 3’s Madison Weil will be covering the case. Watch on Monday at 5 and 6 p.m. for new details on the case.

Madison Weil | Contributed

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