5 Takeaways From the Appeals Court Hearing on Trump’s Immunity Claim

A three-judge panel of the federal appeals court in Washington heard arguments on Tuesday in a momentous case over former President Donald J. Trump’s claim that he is immune from criminal charges for the efforts he took to overturn the 2020 election.

A ruling by the court — and when it issues that decision — could be a major factor in determining when, or even whether, Mr. Trump will go to trial in the federal election case.

Here are some takeaways:

The judges on the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit appeared unlikely to dismiss the charges against Mr. Trump on grounds of presidential immunity, as he has asked them to do. The two Democratic appointees on the court, Judge J. Michelle Childs and Judge Florence Y. Pan, peppered John Sauer, a lawyer for Mr. Trump, with difficult questions.

Judge Karen L. Henderson, the panel’s sole Republican appointee, seemed to reject a central part of Mr. Trump’s argument: that his efforts to overturn his loss to President Biden cannot be subject to prosecution because presidents have a constitutional duty to ensure that election laws are upheld.

“I think it’s paradoxical to say that his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed allows him to violate the criminal law,” Judge Henderson said.

Still, Judge Henderson also expressed worry that allowing the case to proceed could “open the floodgates” of prosecutions of former presidents. She raised the possibility of sending the case back to the Federal District Court judge overseeing pretrial proceedings, Tanya S. Chutkan, for greater scrutiny of how to consider Mr. Trump’s actions.

Judge Pan asked Mr. Sauer to address a series of hypotheticals intended to test the limits of his position that presidents