Trump asks Supreme Court to delay a presidential immunity ruling in 2020 election case

• Lawyers for Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court to temporarily halt a lower-court ruling rejecting his immunity claim in the federal election interference case.
• A three-judge panel in the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., unanimously denied Trump's argument that he cannot be prosecuted for any official acts he performed as president.
• Special counsel Jack Smith accuses Trump of conspiring to defraud the U.S. and obstruct Congress.

Lawyers for Donald Trump on Monday asked the Supreme Court to temporarily halt a ruling rejecting his claim that he is immune from being criminally charged with trying to overturn his loss in the 2020 presidential election.

"Without immunity from criminal prosecution, the Presidency as we know it will cease to exist," Trump's attorneys wrote in an application for the Supreme Court to pause the ruling from a lower court.

A three-judge panel in the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., last Tuesday unanimously denied Trump's argument that he cannot be prosecuted for any official acts he performed as president.

That ruling would end Trump's effort to throw out special counsel Jack Smith's case and restart proceedings in federal district court in D.C.

But the panel withheld its 57-page ruling from taking effect until Monday, giving Trump's lawyers time to ask the Supreme Court to pause the case while they file an appeal to the nation's highest court.

In applying for that pause Monday afternoon, the defense lawyers argued that the high court should "forestall, once again, an unprecedented and unacceptable departure from ordinary appellate procedures and allow President Trump's claim of immunity to be decided in the ordinary course of justice."

Trump's immunity claim "presents a novel,