Donald Trump on Monday appealed to the US Supreme Court to block a lower court ruling that had denied his claim to immunity for alleged crimes while he was president.

The appeal for the top court to stay the earlier ruling is crucial to deciding whether Trump can be put on trial for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election in which he lost to current President Joe Biden.

The appeal puts Trump’s fate in the Supreme Court’s hands nine months before election day in which the hard-right former president is likely to be the Republican nominee to face Biden for a second time.

Trump is the first major presidential candidate in US history to be running under the cloud of multiple criminal and legal investigations and trials.

He faces 91 counts in four criminal cases over his removal of top-secret documents from the White House when he left, his use of hush money to silence damaging allegations of extramarital sex, and the multi-pronged attempt to overturn Biden’s 2020 victory.