New Marist Poll data shows a large majority in the highly targeted, early (in presidential primary terms) state of New Hampshire saying that former President Donald Trump should be subject to potential charges for actions that he undertook in office.
While facing four total criminal cases including two at the federal level, Trump is currently clamoring for the opposite: either absolute or nearly absolute immunity, meaning a blanket shield from the possibility of criminal consequences for actions taken amid his federal responsibilities as president.
The Marist data showed 65 percent saying Trump should not get the wide-ranging legal protections that he’s seeking, which the former president is trying to utilize to shut down criminal proceedings originating with Special Counsel Jack Smith at the federal Justice Department.
Legal observers haven’t expressed a lot of confidence in Trump’s claims of extensive immunity, which most recently came before a three-judge panel of a federal court of appeals in Washington, D.C., where a decision had yet to be issued as of this weekend. Trump said in personal, public commentary that even actions by a president that “cross the line” — which he didn’t define — should be shielded from possible prosecution, and in court, a lawyer for the ex-president left open the possibility that a commander-in-chief could direct a military assassination of a political target and evade criminal consequences — all of which has left observers concerned.
Elsewhere, Trump mostly failed in an attempt to get Smith held in contempt over his team continuing to produce court filings despite a pause on the bulk of proceedings at the trial level. The judge did newly demand that substantive filings ahead of an eventual trial be filed only with her permission and brought with clarifications on whether the contents are among those around which deadlines have been put on hold or something that would demand a quicker response. Presiding Judge Tanya Chutkan clarified, however, that she did not find federal prosecutors to have expressly violated the directives of her own prior order outlining the pause amid Trump’s immunity arguments elsewhere.
