Donald Trump offered a bizarre new case for full presidential immunity on Truth Social on Thursday morning, claiming presidents would be incapable of doing their job without it.
“EVEN EVENTS THAT ‘CROSS THE LINE’ MUST FALL UNDER TOTAL IMMUNITY, OR IT WILL BE YEARS OF TRAUMA TRYING TO DETERMINE GOOD FROM BAD,” he wrote. In 144 words of all-caps, Trump argued that it “WOULD BE IMPOSSIBLE FOR HIM/HER TO PROPERLY FUNCTION” without full immunity for presidential actions. He claimed that any mistake would encounter “ALMOST CERTAIN INDICTMENT BY THE OPPOSING PARTY AT THE TERM END.”
Trump’s remarks come as a Washington, D.C., court is expected to hand down a decision about his immunity appeal for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, which culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol insurrection. The three-judge panel was skeptical of Trump’s claim at his appellate hearing on Jan. 9, 2024. Judge Florence Pan asked Trump’s lawyer if, by his reasoning, a president would be immune from prosecution even if he or she sold military secrets or ordered the assassination of a political rival. Trump’s lawyer responded that such a prosecution could only proceed if the president in question was impeached and convicted by the Senate first.
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No sitting president has been convicted after impeachment. President Richard Nixon resigned before he could be impeached and was pardoned by his successor, Gerald Ford, a point brought by Judge Michelle Childs to suggest that no one has historically assumed that presidents are immune from prosecution for actions taken in office, regardless of impeachment proceedings.
The court’s decision, expected to arrive any day, will set the pace for his D.C. election interference trial, the latest in a slew of court proceedings the former president is embroiled in. The justice panel is working on an expedited timeline as the D.C. trial is scheduled for March, ahead of the November election in which the ex-president is the Republican frontrunner.
Special counsel Jack Smith previously called Trump’s immunity argument a license for presidents to commit crimes and a threat to the “democratic and constitutional foundation” of the country.
