Washington, Jan 9 (EFE).- Former US President Donald Trump (2017–2021) said on Tuesday that the Democrats will try to beat him in the next presidential elections through the courts.
“They feel this is the way they’re going to try and win,” he said. “And that’s not the way it goes. It will be bedlam in the country,” Trump told reporters after a hearing in a Washington court.
“When they talk about the threat to democracy, that’s your real threat to democracy,” he added.
At the hearing, held at the federal appeals court in Washington, Trump’s lawyers defended that the Republican leader has presidential immunity for the events of the 2021 attack on the Capitol.
Trump attended the hearing, called less than a week before the Iowa caucuses, which open the electoral calendar in the United States, despite the fact that his presence was not required and that he would not be able to speak.
In his subsequent statement to the media, the former president echoed one of his lawyers’ arguments, claiming that denying his request for immunity and allowing the criminal case to proceed would open a “Pandora’s box” against leaders.
“I think as a president you have to have immunity. Very simple,” Trump said.
However, this arguments were met with skepticism by the panel of three judges who must make the decision, and who had to listen to the defense affirm that even a political assassination would fall under presidential immunity.
The immunity case is now in the appeals court because in December the judge hearing the criminal case, Tanya Chutkan, denied Trump’s request to dismiss the case.
Once the appeals court rules, the case will likely end up in the US Supreme Court.
The former president is thus trying to avoid the trial in which he is accused of several crimes – the most serious conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding – that could lead to a maximum of 55 years in prison.
It is one of the four criminal cases that Trump has opened 10 months before the presidential elections.
The start of the trial is scheduled for March 4, 2024 in the federal capital, fully coinciding with the primary process in which Trump is the favorite.
However the lawsuit for immunity could, in turn, become a delaying strategy by the former president’s legal team to postpone this date.EFE
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