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This week, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear oral arguments regarding Donald Trump's bid to secure presidential immunity from prosecution on charges related to his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. The Supreme Court will likely review the decision, but Trump is already pushing for indictments against President Joe Biden if things don't go his way.
Late Sunday night, Trump took to Truth Social to confirm that he planned to attend the hearings in D.C. in person, adding that if he could move to indict Biden, should he be elected in November, if he isn't granted immunity
"If I don't get Immunity, then Crooked Joe Biden doesn't get Immunity, and with the Border Invasion and Afghanistan Surrender, alone, not to mention the Millions of dollars that went into his "pockets" with money from foreign countries, Joe would be ripe for Indictment. By weaponizing the DOJ against his Political Opponent, ME, Joe has opened a giant Pandora's Box," Trump wrote.
In late December, the Supreme Court denied a request from Special Counsel Jack Smith to fast-track a ruling on whether Trump is immune from prosecution for any crimes he committed while in office. Smith's request came after D.C. District Judge Tanya Chutkan ruled against a bid by Trump to have the Department of Justice's election interference case against him thrown out.
"Whatever immunities a sitting president may enjoy, the United States has only one chief executive at a time, and that position does not confer a lifelong ‘get-out-of-jail-free' pass," Chutkan wrote in her Dec. 11 decision, adding that his "four-year service as Commander in Chief did not bestow on him the divine right of kings to evade the criminal accountability that governs his fellow citizens."
The Justice Department's case is now stalled, however, until a higher court settles the question of presidential immunity. If the D.C. Court of Appeals, or the Supreme Court should they decide to rule on an appeal, decides in Trump's favor, it would undermine not only the DOJ's case but also potentially derail a separate election interference and racketeering case brought against Trump and his allies in Georgia.
Regardless of the court's decision, Trump has for months now been planning his revenge on prosecutors and Democrats. As previously reported by Rolling Stone, the former president and his allies have already begun laying the groundwork to restructure and weaponize the Justice Department into an execution tool for the far-right's agenda. One proposed reform is the creation of a so-called "Office of Election Integrity," tasked with laundering Trump's baseless conspiracies about electoral fraud in 2020.
In November, Trump indicated that if reelected, he would use his government powers to indict his political opponents. "What they've done is they've released the genie out of the box," Trump told Univion's Enrique Acevedo. "If they do this and they've already done it, but if they want to follow through on this, yeah, it could certainly happen in reverse."
"If I happen to be president, and I see somebody who is doing well and beating me very badly, I'll say, ‘go down and indict them,'" he added.
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