Former President Donald Trump says the Biden administration’s efforts to deny him presidential immunity in connection with his challenges to the 2020 presidential election could haunt President Joe Biden in the future.
On Tuesday, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit will hear arguments on Trump’s immunity defense, according to The New York Times.
He has argued his efforts to challenge the results — including his actions on Jan. 6, 2021, the day of the Capitol incursion — were part of his job as president to ensure elections were not rigged.
Prosecutors, and a lower court, have said even though Trump was president, he was not acting in a presidential capacity with his challenges, but rather in a political one.
Trump said if he loses, Biden will also suffer.
“I will be attending … the Federal Appeals Court Arguments on Presidential Immunity in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday,” the former president said in a Truth Social post on Monday.
“Of course I was entitled, as President of the United States and Commander in Chief, to Immunity. I wasn’t campaigning, the Election was long over. I was looking for voter fraud, and finding it, which is my obligation to do, and otherwise running … our Country,” he said.
“If I don’t get Immunity, then Crooked Joe Biden doesn’t get Immunity, and with the Border Invasion and Afghanistan Surrender, alone, not to mention the Millions of dollars that went into his ‘pockets’ with money from foreign countries, Joe would be ripe for Indictment,” Trump posted.
“By weaponizing the DOJ against his Political Opponent, ME, Joe has opened a giant Pandora’s Box,” he said.
The GOP front-runner in this year’s presidential race continued his thoughts in a second post.
“As President, I was protecting our Country, and doing a great job of doing so, just look around at the complete mess that Crooked Joe Biden has caused. The least I am entitled to is Presidential Immunity on Fake Biden Indictments!” Trump wrote.
The issue before the court is at the heart of multiple cases against Trump, including his federal charges for election interference and his state charges in Georgia that claim he led a conspiracy to overturn the election.
Last month, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan denied the former president’s bid to dismiss his case based on presidential immunity.
Prosecutor Jack Smith sought to have the case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court, which would leapfrog the usual order but allow Smith to have some hope of beginning Trump’s federal election interference trial in March as he hoped.
In documents filed ahead of Tuesday’s arguments before the appeals court, Trump’s lawyers said that a “234-year unbroken tradition” supports his claim to presidential immunity from prosecution.
The 41-page brief argues that impeachment, not criminal prosecution, is the proper check on “official acts” taken by presidents.
Should Biden be impeached?
“Punishment of a President always involves political considerations going beyond guilt or innocence,” Trump’s attorneys wrote. “The Framers recognized that, and they delegated to Congress the power to weigh those political considerations in the first instance.”
“To allow prosecution after acquittal usurps that role and undermines the mechanism the Framers used to temper political passions: impeachment in the House and trial in the Senate,” the legal brief said.
