Trump After D.C. Hearing: 'A President Has to Have Immunity'
After a historic hearing Tuesday in Washington, D.C., former President Donald Trump warned about the danger of special counsel Jack Smith and President Joe Biden's Justice Department seeking to unwind U.S. precedent of presidential immunity.
"I think most people understand it, and we feel very confident that eventually — hopefully at this level, but eventually we want: The president has to have immunity," Trump said outside the court room, calling it a "momentus" day, hailing prosecutors making "two major" concessions in Tuesday's Federal Appeals Court hearing.
"It's very unfair when a political opponent is prosecuted by the DOJ, by Biden's DOJ," Trump added. "So they're losing in every poll. They are losing in almost every demographic. "Numbers came out today that are really very mindboggling if you happen to be Joe Biden, and I think they feel this is the way they're going to try and win, and that's not the way it goes. "That'll be bedlam in the country. It's a very bad thing."
The Washington appeals court judges questioned the former president's claim he is immune from criminal charges for spreading doubt on the integrity of the 2020 election. Trump and his lawyer D. John Sauer hailed having received some concessions from Smith's prosecutors in the hearing Tuesday, acknowledging there is a need for presidential immunity on actions taken by presidents.
"They conceded two major points," Trump said. "If it weren't me, that would be the end of this case. But sometimes they look at me differently than they look upon others, and that's very bad for our country."
One of the concessions made was admitted former President Barack Obama and President Joe Biden could not be criminally prosecuted for a mistaken drone strike.
"You can't have a president without immunity," Trump said outside the courtroom. "You have to have, as a president, you have to be able to do your job."
The second "major concession," according to Trump and his lawyer, is Trump's actions were during the time of the presidency.
"We found tremendous voter fraud, determinative voter fraud, but we worked on that – that's what I was doing," Trump said. "And they were talking about after. "Well, nothing has to do with after I left. It was during the time, and that was what they really focused on today during the appeal. "And they can see that and everybody concedes that, and if it's during the time, you have absolute immunity. "So we'll see how it all works out. We have a great argument."
Trump's lawyers faced a skeptical reception as they sought to convince appeals-court judges that former presidents should not be prosecuted for actions they took in office. Trump is due to go to trial in March on federal charges of election subversion.
"You're saying a president could sell pardons, could sell military secrets, could tell SEAL Team Six to assassinate a political rival?" Judge Florence Pan asked Sauer. Sauer said a former president could be charged for such conduct only if first impeached by the House and convicted in the Senate.
Trump did not address the court. He did, however, confer quietly with his attorneys several times during the hearing. With the Republican state-by-state presidential nominating contest due to kick off next week, Trump used the hearing as an opportunity to claim he is the victim of political persecution. If the case is allowed to go forward, Trump said, he could prosecute Democrat President Joe Biden if he wins the November presidential election.
"If I don't get immunity then crooked Joe Biden doesn't get immunity," Trump said in a video posted on social media ahead of the hearing. "Joe would be ripe for indictment."
Trump, who lost to Biden in the 2020 election, has opened up a commanding lead over his rivals for the Republican presidential nomination since the first criminal charge against him was announced last March. He is expected to easily win Monday's contest in Iowa. The Justice Department has long held that presidents cannot be prosecuted while in office for doing their official duties. Trump, the first former president to be criminally prosecuted, faces 91 criminal counts in four separate cases.
Sauer, Trump's lawyer, told a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that allowing prosecution to go forward would lead to a cycle of retribution after each election and "open a Pandora's Box from which that nation may never recover."
"It's the opening of a Pandora's box and it's a very sad thing that's happened with this whole situation," Trump added outside the courtroom Tuesday. "When they talk about threat to democracy, that's your real threat to democracy. "And I feel that as a president, you have to have immunity. Very simple. And if you don't — as an example, if this case were lost on immunity, and I did nothing wrong, absolutely nothing wrong and working for the country — and I worked on very hard on voter fraud because we have to have free elections. We have to have strong borders. We have to have free elections. Those two things almost above all."
In court, Sauer argued presidents must first be impeached and removed from office by Congress before he could be prosecuted. Trump was impeached twice but the Senate failed to convict him. Some Republican senators declined to convict him after he was impeached for trying to overturn the 2020 election, on the grounds that he could be held accountable in court.
U.S. prosecutors argue Trump was acting as a candidate, not a president, when he pressured officials to overturn the election results and encouraged his supporters to march to the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The case against Trump reflects the unprecedented nature of his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and granting him immunity for those actions would give future presidents license to commit crimes, Justice Department lawyer James Pearce told the panel. "The president has a unique constitutional role, but he is not above the law," he said.
Both the legal outcome and timing of the appeals court's ruling will play a pivotal role in determining whether Trump faces trial ahead of the Nov. 5, 2024, election.
Smith has accused Trump of a multi-pronged conspiracy to hinder the counting and certification of his 2020 defeat, culminating in the Jan. 6 attack. Trump has pleaded not guilty to charges including defrauding the government and obstructing Congress. The case is one of four criminal prosecutions Trump faces this year as he campaigns to win back the White House.
Trump's immunity claim has already been rejected by U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing the case. But it could take several weeks or months to be resolved on appeal. Any ruling from the appeals court is almost certain to be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which last month denied a request from Smith to immediately decide the issue. Activity in the case has been halted in the meantime, which could delay the trial's scheduled March 4 start.
thehill.com
