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The small courtroom was already full when former President Donald J. Trump slowly entered.
“Where should I sit?” Trump asked lawyers who arrived with him shortly before a three-judge panel was to hear arguments on his claims that he is immune from criminal prosecution in a case over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
After showing little emotion during the hearing, which lasted about an hour and 15 minutes, Trump suggested that the special counsel’s office had been forced to admit two key points, although he offered few details about what those issues were.
Speaking to reporters at the Waldorf Astoria hotel, which Trump once owned, the former president said it was unfair for the Justice Department to prosecute him and claimed the prosecution was politically motivated. He discussed the latest polls for the 2024 presidential race and once again insisted that there was “tremendous voter fraud” in the 2020 election that President Biden won.
“I feel like, as president, you should have immunity, very simple,” Trump said. And he added: “I didn’t do anything wrong.”
Trump had arrived at court with an entourage of lawyers and Walt Nauta, his former personal assistant and co-defendant in the other federal case against Trump, over his handling of classified documents after he left office.
The special prosecutor who brought both cases, Jack Smith, and the prosecution team arrived long before Trump. Smith, whom Trump has called a “deranged psychopath,” watched the arguments from a seat about 20 feet away from the former president.
Throughout the hearing, Trump seemed virtually impassive. He relaxed his stance slightly when Judge Karen L. Henderson, appointed by President George HW Bush, began asking questions. (The other two judges were appointed by Biden.)
As the panel questioned James Pearce, who argued the special counsel’s case on Tuesday, Trump exchanged notes with his lawyers. When Trump’s lawyer, John Sauer, responded to a second round of questions from the panel, Trump nodded his head twice, even as the lawyer hinted at a political motivation for the impeachment and suggested a dark path forward for the country if In what case does it continue?
“We are in a situation where we have the prosecution of the main political opponent who is winning in all the polls next year’s federal election and he is being prosecuted by the administration he is seeking to replace,” Mr. Sauer said. “That is the terrifying future that is tailor-made to launch cycles of recrimination that will rock our Republic well into the future.”
At the end of the hearing, Trump stood up as the justices left the courtroom and then briefly looked at reporters and the audience before slowly leaving the courtroom the same way he had entered.