Posted on 01/09/24
| News Source: The Hill
A three-judge panel during a hearing Tuesday appeared broadly skeptical of former President Trump’s claims that he enjoys broad presidential immunity from prosecution on charges related to the 2020 presidential election.
Trump’s lawyers took a firm position, arguing former presidents such as Trump can only face prosecution if they are first impeached and then convicted by the Senate. They have asked the court to toss the case entirely.
But the three-judge panel appeared poised to reject those arguments, warning that Congress may not always choose to impeach a president for unlawful conduct, and that such a stance would prohibit prosecutors from later acting on new evidence of crimes if it went unweighted by the Senate.
Trump attended the hearing in person before the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals, leaving the campaign trail less than a week before the Iowa caucuses to travel to the nation’s capital. Trump’s legal travails have helped him on the campaign trail, where he has a big lead on GOP rivals in Iowa and nationally.
At the courthouse, Trump spent the hour-plus argument largely staring ahead, making brief comments to his lawyers.
John Sauer, Trump’s attorney, was peppered by the judges with a number of hypotheticals about the extent a president would be shielded from prosecution if they were not impeached for the conduct, such as ordering SEAL Team Six to kill a political rival or selling presidential pardons.
Sauer said his answer was a “qualified yes.”
“He would have to be impeached and convicted” first, Sauer said, before prosecutors would be able to contemplate a case against a former president.
But the judges pushed back heavily on those arguments.
At one point, Judge Florence Pan, a President Biden appointee, noted that Trump’s legal team argued essentially the opposite case when he faced a second impeachment, in this case for his conduct related to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
“It seems many senators relied on that,” Pan said.