Donald Trump’s presidential immunity appeal opens new campaign front
The Appeals Court judges appeared unconvinced that a president couldn’t be criminally liable unless he or she had been first impeached by congress.
Washington DC’s top appeals court looked set to strike down Donald Trump’s claim he should be exempt from criminal charges based on the theory of presidential immunity, as Trump-aligned lawyers sought to dismiss separate racketeering charges against the former president following allegations the Georgia’s district attorney had a “improper, clandestine personal relationship”..
On a dismal wet winter day in the US capital Mr Trump’s motorcade arrived at E Barrett Prettyman federal courthouse in the nation’s capital on Tuesday morning (Wednesday AEDT) so the former president could sit through over an hour of arcane legal arguments that will set definitive precedents on the limits to presidential power.
Two Democrat and one Republican appointed judge on the Appeals Court appeared unpersuaded by claims made by Mr Trump’s lawyers that a president couldn’t be criminally liable unless he or she had been first impeached by congress, anticipating a further appeal to the Supreme Court after DC court’s decision is released in coming days.
The former president, and frontrunner for the GOP 2024 presidential nomination, did not need to attend hearing in person, which drew him away from critical last-minute campaigning ahead of Iowa’s caucuses next week, but his campaign has benefited from imagery that casts the former president as a persecuted de facto opposition leader.
Wearing a dark suit and red tie, Mr Trump sat silently next to a phalanx of lawyers during the hearing, staring straight ahead without expression and taking occasional notes on a yellow legal pad, passing it back and forth to his team, the Wall Street Journal reported.
“I think most people understand and we feel very confident that eventually, hopefully at this level, but eventually (a court will find) a president has to have immunity,” Mr Trump told reporters assembled afterward at the nearby Waldorf Astoria (formerly Trump) Hotel.
“I feel that as a president, you have to have immunity, very simple … I did nothing wrong,” he added, claiming a “Pandora’s box” would be opened by a finding against him, leading to potential charges against Barack Obama for deaths following drone strikes during his administration, or Joe Biden for his failure to secure the southern border.
Mr Trump’s legal counsel John Sauer argued a ruling against the former president would elicit a “frightening future that is tailor made to launch cycles of recrimination that will shake our Republic for the future”.
“We are in a situation where we have the prosecution of the chief political opponent who is winning in every poll the federal election upcoming next year and is being prosecuted by the administration that he’s seeking to replace,” he said.
Experts said the Trump case appeared to founder after Dr Sauer conceded his arguments would exempt a president from prosecution even if, based on a hypothetical proffered by one of the judges, a president had ordered US forces to assassinate a political rival unless he or she had been impeached first.
Little case law exists on the issue beyond potentially conflicting Supreme Court decisions surrounding Richard Nixon’s behaviour: one in 1974 which found president liable to comply with a court order seeking tapes of his conversations, and another in 1982 that found the president was exempt from civil charges for acts committed in office after he had left office.
As the presidential primaries near Mr Trump has focused his attention on dismissing or delaying the 91 criminal indictments across state and federal jurisdictions brought against him last year, which could severely imperil his ability to campaign in an election year or even trigger a conviction before the November 2024 election.
Currently, the federal trial over alleged federal election interference is set for early March, around the critical Super Tuesday primaries; a Supreme Court hearing could delay it significantly, potentially even until after the election.
Trump prosecutions in campaign season
The other federal charges against Mr Trump, surrounding top secrets documents kept at Mar-A-Lago, is scheduled for May.
In his remarks after the hearing Mr Trump also demanded the Georgia racketeering case against him be thrown out following sensational allegation the state’s district attorney, Fanni Willis, who brought charges against Mr Trump over his alleged efforts to overturn the state’s 2020 election result, financially benefited from the special prosecutor she appointed to lead the case.
“The district attorney is totally compromised, the case has to be dropped … they say she’s in more trouble or has more criminal liability than any of the people she’s looking at,” Mr Trump said.
Filed in Georgia courts late on Monday night (Tuesday AEDT) by a former Trump lawyer Michael Roman, the 127-page bombshell statement alleged Ms Willis holidayed in Napa Valley and the Caribbean with prosecutor Nathan Wade on the back of hundreds of thousands of dollars Mr Wade received in his role overseeing the prosecution of Trump, former New York City mayor New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and others.
“The district attorney and the special prosecutor have violated laws regulating the use of public moneys, suffer from irreparable conflicts of interest, and have violated their oaths of office under the Georgia Rules of Professional Conduct and should be disqualified from prosecuting this matter,” the filing said, also alleging Mr Wade wasn’t qualified for the role.
The filing, which Ms Willis is yet to publicly comment on, didn’t include direct evidence of the claims, citing only “discussions with individuals with knowledge”, although legal experts agreed if proven true the claims could seriously damage Ms Willis’s reputation and undermine her case against Mr Trump.
Mr Trump is expected to continue to eschew the campaign trail and choose to appear in person this Thursday (Friday AEDT) in New York City for a separate civil-fraud case.
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