‘It opens a Pandora’s box’: Trump warns of ‘bedlam’ if prosecution goes ahead on January 6

Legal experts were skeptical that pursuing the charges would lead to endless prosecutions of ex-presidents. Yet Trump has increasingly framed his bid to return to power as taking “revenge” on political enemies who wronged him.

Washington: Former President Donald Trump took a long time to do so promised to prosecute President Joe Biden if Trump wins the November election and the two trading places. On Tuesday, he dramatically raised the stakes, arguing that if the charges against him are not dropped, any current and future ex-presidents could also be prosecuted.

“I think as president you should have immunity, very simple,” Trump said after a court hearing where a panel of three federal judges appeared deeply skeptical of his lawyers’ statements. arguments that presidents have immunity of prosecution for official business. “It’s opening a Pandora’s box and it’s very, very sad what has happened with this whole situation.”

Trump said Biden may not be the only one targeted. Former President Barack Obama could be prosecuted, he said, citing the Obama administration’s drone strikes in the Middle East that killed a U.S. citizen identified as the leader of the terrorist group Al-Qaeda, and the 16 year old son of that man. also a US citizen. In court, Trump’s lawyer suggested that former President George W. Bush could be prosecuted for providing false information that sparked the war in Iraq.

The arguments, related to the federal charges Trump faces for attempting to overturn the 2020 election results, raised new constitutional issues that can only be resolved at the U.S. Supreme Court because Trump’s cases represent the first criminal charges of a former president. They have also dramatically raised the stakes for Trump’s campaign by portraying the allegations as politically motivated attacks by Biden that would justify his own retaliation if he were to return to the White House.

Legal experts were skeptical that pursuing the charges would lead to endless prosecutions of ex-presidents. Yet Trump has increasingly framed his bid to return to power as taking “revenge” on political enemies who wronged him.

He made a point of being physically present in the courtroom for Tuesday’s arguments. That maximized the attention he received, both for his legal battle against the federal government and for his primary campaign, six days before Iowa holds the first contest of the Republican presidential nomination cycle. It also put him in front of the camera as he promised to repay what he portrayed as Democratic vindictiveness with his own if he won the election.

“That will be chaos in the country” if the prosecution continues, Trump warned.

The former president’s lawyers said they do not want a future of perpetual retaliation when presidents leave office.

“The president is absolutely right when he says that if this prosecution continues, no presidency in the future will ever be safe,” Will Scharf, one of Trump’s lawyers, said in an interview.

Legal experts said they were struck by these arguments. “You would think that someone running for president would not try to claim immunity from criminal justice, but would reassure voters that he is following the law,” said Claire Finkelstein, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

Trump’s argument is that he was simply performing his official duty as president when he tried to overturn his 2020 election loss to Biden, an act for which Biden’s Justice Department is now prosecuting him. While there is no evidence that Biden had any influence on the case, Trump has long portrayed it as political persecution and accused Biden of being the one trampling on democratic traditions.

The hearing came after Trump appealed a lower court ruling that presidential immunity did not protect him from charges that he conspired to defraud the United States by challenging his election defeat.

Trump has clearly been taken with the reference to Pandora’s Box, the divine container from ancient Greek myth that was opened by an unsuspecting woman, unleashing disease, despair and other misery into the human world.

“If I don’t get immunity, then corrupt Joe Biden doesn’t get immunity, and with the border invasion and the surrender of Afghanistan alone, not to mention the millions of dollars that went into his ‘pockets’ with money from abroad, Joe would be ripe for an indictment,” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform on Monday. “By arming the DOJ against his political opponent, riot police, Joe has opened a giant Pandora’s box.”

Before a three-judge appeals panel in Washington, Trump’s lawyer repeated the Pandora’s Box analogy, and his allies agreed, even if they did not use the same reference.

“If these justices cannot put aside their Trump disobedience and establish at a basic level that presidents are immune from criminal prosecution, it will be deeply damaging to the presidency,” said Mike Davis, former chief attorney for Senate nominations. Judiciary Committee leading the Article III Project, which pushes for conservative judges and rulings.

Davis said there is no statute of limitations on murder charges, which he said could be brought against Obama over the 2011 drone strikes on Anwar Al-Awklaki and his 16-year-old son Abdulraham.

But Paul Coggins, a former U.S. attorney in Texas, said there is already clear precedent that federal officials, including the president, are immune from prosecution for decisions made in good faith while conducting official business.

“Stealing an election,” Coggins said, would not fall into that category.

“That standard is one that the courts are familiar with and can apply,” Coggins said.

Filing charges was part of his job as a federal prosecutor, he said, but he would have had no legal protection if he had decided to personally serve a warrant.

There is precedent of previous presidents worrying about prosecution for actions they took while in office that may not have been within the scope of their official duties. For example, Richard Nixon was pardoned by his successor, Gerald Ford, implying that he was in criminal jeopardy due to the Watergate scandal. During his final days as president, Bill Clinton reached a deal with the special counsel investigating his relationship with a White House intern. The deal spared him from prosecution but included an admission that he had lied under oath.

“Trump may be right about the future,” Saikrishna Prakash, a law professor at the University of Virginia, wrote in an email. “But either way, I think he is wrong about whether presidents have immunity from criminal prosecution.”