Edited by Deepali Verma
Former US President Donald Trump, prior to his appearance in a federal appeals court hearing in Washington on January 9, threatened to prosecute his successor Joe Biden if he returned to the White House.
“If I don’t get immunity then so does crooked Joe Biden,” Trump voiced in a video that made rounds on social media. “Joe would be ripe for indictment as the appeals court is probing the limits of Trump’s broad immunity claim in the 2020 election case while his lawyers argued to judges that he held immunity from prosecution on charges that he plotted to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Trump, lost to Biden in the 2020 election, and has established a commanding lead over his competitors for the Republican presidential nomination. The Iowa contest on January 15 is expected to be an easy win for him.
Trump’s lawyer remarked that a criminal probe would not be possible without House’s impeachment. Over the course of heated oral arguments on January 9, a federal appeals court put up questions regarding the boundaries of a wide claim of presidential immunity made by Trump. During this heated argument, his attorney argued that presidents are exempt from criminal prosecution for activities performed while in office, unless they are initially impeached by the House and found guilty by the Senate.
The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, consisting a panel of three judges, questioned whether the same line of reasoning would hold up in the event if the president carried out several unlawful deeds, including ordering the assassination of a political opponent or selling pardons.
John Sauer, Trump’s lawyer, contended that a criminal investigation is impossible without the House’s impeachment and the Senate’s conviction.
Special Counsel cautions court against Trump’s attorney view
A member of special counsel Jack Smith’s team, James Pearce has flagged the court that adopting Sauer’s interpretation of a former president’s criminal liability after being impeached and found guilty by both chambers of Congress is “wrong for textual, structural, historical reasons and a host of practical ones.”
“Up until this case, no president has claimed that immunity from criminal prosecution extends beyond his time in office “The president has a unique constitutional role to fulfil, but he is not above the law,” Pearce told the court.
“It means that when a former president engages in assassination, selling pardons, such kinds of things and then isn’t impeached and convicted, there is no accountability for that individual,” he stated.
The lower court, however, has already ruled that Trump is not completely immune from prosecution, Sauer requested the DC court, if it rules against Trump and allows the prosecution by Smith to proceed, to postpone its decision in order to facilitate the former president’s appeal to either the full D.C. Circuit or Supreme Court.
Judges remain sceptical of Trump’s absolute immunity claim
What was roughly a 90-minute hearing, the three-judge panel at the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit voiced particular scepticism with the claim that he had absolute immunity from prosecution.
“I think it is rather paradoxical to claim that his constitutional duty to ensure that the laws be faithfully executed allows him to violate criminal law,” the circuit judge Karen Henderson, a George HW Bush appointee, said in response to Trump’s attorney Sauer.
Following the court hearing, Trump spoke to the media and reiterated that “I feel that as a president, you have to have immunity, very simple.”
