LOS ANGELES — Donald Trump appeared in a federal appeals court on Tuesday to hear a panel of three judges examine his immunity case to the charges of attempting to overturn the 2020 election results.
Loyola Law School professor Jessica Levinson joined “Inside the Issues” host Amrit Singh to discuss what the day’s proceedings looked like.
For Levinson, the scope of presidential immunity was cleared up before Trump’s trial began, though the issue she points out is there has never been a case like this one before.
“It’s not that [this case], in my view, is a difficult legal call, it’s just that we’ve never had a president allegedly engage in this type of criminal behavior,” Levinson said.
Trump’s lawyers argue the former president is immune from prosecution in the 2020 election case and going after him for doing what they claim are official acts would set a dangerous precedent.
“To authorize the prosecution of a president for official acts would open a Pandora’s box from which this nation may never recover,” said one of Trump’s attorneys, John Sauer.
Levinson says what needs to happen is going through all the charges being brought against Trump and deciding which fall in the scope of official acts and which ones do not.
“If you’re trying to subvert an election, are you truly acting as a president? Or are you acting as a candidate,” Levinson said.
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