Donald Trump has appeared in court trying to dismiss a federal criminal case in which he faces charges of plotting to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Mr. TrumpThe president's lawyers argued before appellate judges in Washington, D.C., that he was immune from prosecution because he was president at the time of the alleged crimes.
But prosecutors say he was acting as a candidate, not a president, when he pressured officials to overturn the results and encouraged his supporters to march to the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, where they demonstrated. They stormed the building in a riot.
“The president has a unique constitutional role, but he is not above the law,” Attorney General James Pierce said in court.
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Pierce also described it as a “very scary future” if the president were granted full presidential immunity.
Trump, who is scheduled to stand trial in March, has pleaded not guilty to four charges: conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; disability; And conspiring against the right to vote and vote counting.
The panel consists of three judges, two of whom were previously appointed President BidenThey were skeptical that the former commander-in-chief, who lost to Biden in the 2020 White House race, had immunity from prosecution.
“You're saying the president can sell pardons, he can sell military secrets, he can order SEAL Team Six to assassinate a soldier.”
A political rival?” Judge Florence Pan asked Trump's lawyer, Dr. John Sawyer.
Sawyer said the former president could not be accused of such behavior unless he was first impeached by the House and convicted in the Senate.
In Washington, Trump entered the court, sighed, unbuttoned his jacket, and sat down at his lawyer's table, NBC correspondent Ryan Reilly said.
Reilly added that Trump “was mostly silent during his lawyers' arguments,” but he “became confused” during arguments presented by the special counsel prosecuting him.
He continued: “Trump appeared agitated at times during the special counsel's arguments, as he passed notes to his lawyers on a yellow legal pad.”
“He became even more animated when his lawyer claimed that Trump was winning in the polls, and he vigorously shook his head yes.”
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Later, Trump said at a news conference at a Washington hotel: “I feel that as president, you should have immunity — it's very simple.
“I didn't do anything wrong. There's nothing wrong at all.”
He also said he feels “very confident” that he will win his case.
Earlier in the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, Sawyer responded to Pierce's claims about a “scary future”, saying: The “scary future” he claims, where presidents are rarely tried because they must be impeached and convicted first, is the situation we have lived under throughout the The past 235 years.
“This is not a scary future, this is our republic.”
He warned that allowing a president to be tried for official acts would “open a Pandora's box from which this nation may never recover.”
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He claimed that presidents could be prosecuted for providing “false information” to Congress to enter the war or authorizing drone strikes targeting Americans abroad.
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The three justices questioned whether they had jurisdiction to hear the appeal at this stage of the case, raising the possibility that Trump's efforts could be rejected.
They also pushed Trump's lawyers to defend claims that he was protected from criminal charges for actions he says fall within his official duties as president.
This was an argument that was rejected by First Instance Court Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing the case, last month.
The appeals court's decision could take several weeks or months, and its ruling will almost certainly be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Trump, the first former US president to be criminally prosecuted, faces 91 criminal charges Four separate cases.
