WASHINGTON — Special counsel Jack Smith’s team, pointing to President Nixon’s actions in the Watergate scandal, is urging the Supreme Court to reject President Trump’s claim that he is immune from prosecution in a case charging him with scheming to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

“The closest historical analogue is President Nixon’s official conduct in Watergate,” the prosecutors argue, “and his acceptance of a pardon implied his and President Ford’s recognition that a former President was subject to prosecution.”

The brief from federal prosecutors was submitted Monday evening, just over two weeks before the justices take up the legally untested question of whether an ex-president is shielded from criminal charges for official actions taken in the White House.

“A President’s alleged criminal scheme to use his official powers to overturn the presidential election and thwart the peaceful transfer of power frustrates core constitutional provisions that protect democracy,” they write.

The outcome of the April 25 arguments is expected to help determine whether Trump faces trial this year in a four-count indictment that accuses him of conspiring to block the peaceful transfer of power after losing the 2020 election to President Biden.

Mr. Trump has argued that former presidents enjoy immunity for official acts in office. Both the district court judge presiding over the case, Tanya Chutkan, and a three-judge federal appellate panel in Washington have rejected that claim.

The Supreme Court then said it would take up the question, injecting uncertainty into whether the case — one of four criminal prosecutions confronting Mr. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president — can reach trial before November’s election.

In their latest brief, Mr. Smith’s team rehashed many of the arguments that have prevailed in lower courts, pointedly noting that “federal criminal law applies to the president.”

“The Framers never endorsed criminal immunity for a former President, and all Presidents from the Founding to the modern era have known that after leaving office they faced potential criminal liability for official acts,” Mr. Smith’s team wrote.

The prosecutors note that Mr. Trump has argued “that the lack of any prosecutions of former Presidents until this case reflects the settled conclusion that criminal immunity precludes such a prosecution.” 

Mr. Smith’s team rejected that argument. “This prosecution is a historical first not because of any assumption about immunity but instead because of the singular gravity of the alleged conduct,” they write.

“The severity, range, and democracy-damaging nature of the alleged crimes are unique in American history,” the prosecutors contend. “Other than former  President Nixon, whose pardon precluded criminal prosecution,” the prosecutors added, they “can point to no former President alleged to have engaged in remotely similar conduct.”

Prosecutors also said that even if the Supreme Court were to recognize some immunity for a president’s official acts, the justices should nonetheless permit the case to move forward because much of the indictment is centered on Mr. Trump’s private conduct.

Mr. Smith’s team suggested the court could reach a narrow determination that Trump, in this particular case, was not entitled to immunity without arriving at a broader conclusion that would apply to other cases.

“A holding that petitioner has no immunity from the alleged crimes would suffice to resolve this case, leaving potentially more difficult questions that might arise on different facts for decision if they are ever presented,” they said.