Trump called his supporters to come to Washington on Jan. 6 when Congress was meeting to certify Biden's victory. He urged them to "stop the steal," and thousands of them rioted at the Capitol and broke into the building.

The special counsel hoped to bring the charges before a jury this spring, but Trump and his lawyers won several delays from the Supreme Court.

While Trump's claim of absolute immunity was derided by legal experts, Smith and his lawyers took a similarly broad and unyielding position in the opposite direction. They said a former president had no immunity from criminal charges if a prosecutor won an indictment from a grand jury.

The special counsel's position was accepted by U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, the assigned trial judge, and upheld by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington.

However, it soon became clear that Smith's position was not favored at the Supreme Court.

The justices refused in December and again in February to stand aside and allow Smith to bring his case before a jury.

Roberts and Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh had worked as White House lawyers. And like Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Neil M. Gorsuch, they came up in the post-Watergate era of contentious and highly partisan investigations of presidents and their top advisors.

They were wary of giving prosecutors from the current administration full freedom to bring criminal charges against the previous president.

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