Donald Trump predicted on Tuesday that there would be “chaos in the country” if the American judicial system did not drop the measures taken against him, after a hearing in the Federal Court of Appeals in Washington regarding his request for criminal immunity as a former president.
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The front-runner in the Republican primary for the November presidential election, which begins on January 15 in Iowa, has made multiple appeals to postpone his various criminal trials as long as possible, and in any case after the ballot.
The three judges on the Washington Court of Appeals expressed doubts about this immunity request, which aims to dismiss charges against Donald Trump of trying to illegally overturn the results of the 2020 election.
As announced on Monday, although nothing forced him to do so, the person concerned went to court to attend the discussions that lasted more than an hour, without speaking himself.
Then Mr. Trump, who pleaded not guilty in this case on August 3, 2023, again accused the administration of Democratic President Joe Biden of trying through these prosecutions to exclude him from the presidential race, predicting “chaos in the country.”
Judge Tanya Chutkan, who will preside over the proceedings in this trial scheduled for March 4, rejected his request for immunity in December, arguing that there was no provision protecting the former president from criminal prosecution.
“Allowing the president to be tried for his official actions would open a Pandora's box from which this country may never recover,” John Sawyer, Donald Trump's attorney, said Tuesday.
He raised the possibility of indicting former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, respectively, on charges of providing false information about weapons available to Iraq in 2003, and of eliminating jihadists with drone strikes.
Donald Trump's defense claims “absolute immunity” for his actions while in the White House. She cites Supreme Court case law from the 1980s regarding civil lawsuits against former President Richard Nixon.
His lawyers also argue that he cannot be tried in this case because of his acquittal during the parliamentary impeachment proceedings against him for the assault on the Capitol building on January 6, 2021, during which hundreds of his supporters tried to prevent the certification of Joe Biden's victory. .
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In response to one of the judges, Florence Bane, who asked him whether sending special forces to assassinate a political opponent or selling a presidential pardon fell under these official acts, John Sawyer answered in the affirmative.
The presiding judge, Karen Lecraft Henderson, responded: “It would be ironic to say that his constitutional duty to ensure faithful respect for the laws allows him to violate the criminal law.”
“There have never been allegations before that a president, through private individuals and using levers of power, attempted to fundamentally subvert the democratic republic and the electoral system,” said James Pearce, a member of Special Prosecutor Jack Smith's team investigating the case. Investigation of the case.
In her decision, Judge Chutkan concluded that Nixon's precedent did not apply to criminal prosecutions, and that impeachment proceedings did not constitute a criminal prosecution.
But the appeal halted the proceedings, which could disrupt the trial schedule, worrying Jack Smith.
In December, the Supreme Court denied the Special Prosecutor's request for emergency judgment in this case, which would have disrupted and delayed the traditional appeals process.
But whatever the appeals court decides, parties it deems wrong will likely appeal to the highest court in the land.
Then, the Supreme Court's nine justices, six appointed by Republican presidents and three appointed by Democratic presidents, will have to choose whether to venture into the political arena, or, conversely, to wisely abstain from it.
Donald Trump is employed by the justice of Georgia (Sud-est) for electrical connections, and has been developed in response to a Federal Tribunal for the next generation of reliable documents after his close. White House.
