Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday claimed the upper hand in legal cases against him, betting judges will agree that presidents deserve sweeping immunity against criminal prosecution and that Georgia charges against him will be dropped.
Mr. Trump said the Biden administration and its Justice Department risk kicking off a messy cycle of political prosecutions with its case alleging he conspired against the U.S. and its voters by challenging what he called a rigged 2020 election.
He said his search for voter fraud was a protected official act as president and said a lack of immunity would put President Barack Obama, for instance, at criminal risk for his drone strikes abroad.
“You really can’t put a president in that position. A president has to have immunity,” Mr. Trump said. “I did nothing wrong, we did nothing wrong.”
The former president addressed the media after a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit seemed skeptical of his argument that he enjoys wide protection against election-subversion charges from special counsel Jack Smith.
They were particularly leery of Mr. Trump’s argument that a president must be impeached and convicted in Congress before facing prosecution.
Yet Mr. Trump said there is wide consensus he should have immunity and that arguments put forth by Mr. Smith amount to a political hit job on behalf of President Biden.
“They’re losing in every poll, they are losing in almost every demographic,” Mr. Trump said at the press event at the Waldorf Astoria in Washington. “I think they feel this is the way they’re going to try and win.”
The former president also reacted to a bombshell court motion that says Atlanta-area District Attorney Fani Willis improperly hired an alleged romantic partner to prosecute Mr. Trump for election interference and that the two financially benefited from their relationship.
The court motion, filed by Trump co-defendant Michael Roman, alleges that special prosecutor Nathan Wade, a private attorney and married father of two, paid for luxury vacations he took with Ms. Willis using money his law firm received from Fulton County.
“Totally compromised, the case has to be dropped,” Mr. Trump said. “They say she’s in far more criminal liability than any of the other people they’re looking at.”
Ms. Willis began investigating the former president three years ago based on his bid to pressure Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to find enough votes to overtake Mr. Biden’s narrow victory.
A grand jury indicted Mr. Trump and 18 co-defendants.
• Susan Ferrechio contributed to this report.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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