Donald Trump, the big favorite in the Republican primaries for the November presidential elections, warned yesterday that prosecuting a former president risks causing “chaos” in the United States. “It is very unfair when a political opponent is prosecuted by the [Department of Justice]” of President Joe Biden, his likely electoral rival, Trump said after a hearing in the Washington Court of Appeals examining his request for criminal immunity. . “He will open Pandora’s box” and “it will be chaos for the country,” he added, according to Efe.
Former President Donald Trump appeared voluntarily before the federal courts in Washington on Tuesday to defend the extreme idea that he was untouchable during his four years in the White House. In a hearing before three federal judges, his legal team went so far as to defend the president’s immunity even if he had tried to assassinate a political rival, generating marked skepticism among the three judges of the District of Columbia appeals circuit who will have to make a decision. decision.
Trump, present in the room despite having been campaigning for the Republican Party primaries, listened to John Sauer, his lawyer, defending his impunity against all odds during the review of the criminal case for trying to alter the results of the 2020 elections, a process that is likely to end up being heard by the Supreme Court.
For an hour and a quarter, the trio of judges — two nominated by Democrats and the third by Republicans — bombarded Sauer with questions, firm in his argument that for 200 years American courts had never ruled on the actions of a president while he was in office. in office.
Karen Henderson, the conservative judge, reminded the lawyer that before Trump was charged with a crime, they had never had to face a similar situation. She, too, was not convinced by Sauer’s explanation when he stated that the former president limited himself to complying with his constitutional obligations by trying to preserve the integrity of the election, later trying to alter the result.
The magistrate’s response was forceful. “I think it is paradoxical to say that her constitutional duty to ‘see that the laws are faithfully executed’ allows her to violate criminal law,” she said.
The climax of the 75-minute hearing came after the question from Judge Florence Pan, who asked if they could have criminally prosecuted a president who had commissioned an elite commando to assassinate a political rival. Instead of answering with a yes or no, as Pan requested, Trump’s lawyer pointed out that it would only have been possible if she had been subjected to a political process by the Senate through impeachment.
The judge continued with her harsh interrogation and added a list of serious crimes to corner Sauer, who still did not give in. What if he had pardoned criminals?, as he already did during his presidency. What if he had sold nuclear secrets to enemy nations? Nothing seemed compelling enough to Trump’s lawyer to give up. He insisted that only a prior impeachment and conviction could have led to his criminal prosecution, dismantling the maxim that no one, not even the president, is above the law.