Trump appeal set for rejection

Washington DC’s top appeals court looked set to strike down Donald Trump’s claim he should be exempt from criminal charges based on the theory of presidential immunity, as Trump-aligned lawyers sought to dismiss separate racketeering charges against the former president following allegations Georgia’s district attorney had an “improper, clandestine personal relationship”.

On a wet winter day in the US capital, the form e r president sat through over an hour of arcane legal arguments that will set definitive precedents on the limits to presidential power.

Two Democrat and one Republican appointed judge on the Appeals Court appeared unpersuaded by claims made by his lawyers that a president couldn’t be criminally liable unless he or she had been first impeached by Congress.

The former president, and frontrunner for the GOP 2024 presidential nomination, did not need to attend hearing in person, which drew him away from critical campaigning, but his campaign has benefited from imagery that casts him as a persecuted de facto opposition leader.

Wearing a dark suit and red tie, Mr Trump sat silently next to a phalanx of lawyers during the hearing, staring straight ahead without expression and taking occasional notes, the Wall Street Journal reported.

“I think most people understand and we feel very confident that ... eventually [a court will find] a president has to have immunity,” Mr Trump told reporters afterwards.

In his remarks after the hearing Mr Trump also demanded the Georgia racketeering case against him be thrown out following allegations the state’s district attorney, Fanni Willis, who brought charges against him over his alleged efforts to overturn the state’s 2020 election result, financially benefited from the special prosecutor she appointed to lead the case.