WASHINGTON President Joe Biden could, in theory, have Donald Trump abducted from his Mar-a-Lago home, spirited off to St. Helena in the faraway South Atlantic, and secretly kept there indefinitely, or even straight-up killed, without ever having to worry about criminal charges.

Or so says Donald Trumps logic.

As part of his arguments against special counsel Jack Smiths federal case against him for his actions leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, the former president continues to claim that commanders-in-chief can never be charged for anything they do as part of their official duties.

Its a view that has galvanized lawyers from across the political spectrum to urge federal appellate judges to reject Trumps claims.

It would turn the office of the presidency into the office of state-approved lawlessness, said Glenn Kirschner , a federal prosecutor for more than two decades in Washington, D.C.

Ty Cobb, a former Trump White House lawyer and one of the signatories to an amicus brief in the case, said Trumps argument that he should be immune from any prosecution is no more ridiculous than the Biden hypothetical. He said Trumps lawyers have not been able to come up with any sound legal arguments on his behalf because there arent any.

There is no legal support. Thats the reality, he said. Its the same as hes been saying for years: He could kill someone on 5th Avenue.

Renato Mariotti, a former federal prosecutor in Chicago, said that as outlandish as the Biden example sounds, if Trumps view of presidential immunity is correct, Biden could get away with it as long as he could assert some sort of national security rationale for doing so.

Neither Trumps campaign staff nor his lawyers responded to HuffPosts queries. But his lawyers have repeatedly argued that everything Trump did leading up to and during the assault on the Capitol by a mob of his followers was part of his official duties as president, and therefore cannot be punished via the criminal justice system.

In defending Trumps action, his lawyers in a Tuesday night filing repeated Trumps claims that he was looking into voter fraud, although the only real allegation of fraud was coming from Trump himself with virtually no evidence. President Trump was carrying out his duties as chief executive to investigate the overwhelming reports of widespread election fraud, wrote lawyers John Sauer, John Lauro and Todd Blanche, who then cited one of Trumps own social media posts as proof.

Smith, who is prosecuting Trump on a range of charges including conspiracy and obstruction of an official proceeding based on the Jan. 6 coup attempt, said in another filing that if Trumps analysis is correct, it would legalize a parade of tyrannical behavior.

The defendants sweeping immunity claim threatens to license presidents to commit crimes to remain in office. The founders did not intend and would never have countenanced such a result, Smith wrote in an 82-page brief filed over the New Years weekend.

He then went on to present scenarios even more extreme than the hypothetical of Biden shipping Trump off to the island where Napoleon was ultimately exiled, should Trumps immunity claim be accepted by the courts.

That approach would grant immunity from criminal prosecution to a president who accepts a bribe in exchange for directing a lucrative government contract to the payer; a president who instructs the FBI director to plant incriminating evidence on a political enemy; a president who orders the National Guard to murder his most prominent critics; or a president who sells nuclear secrets to a foreign adversary, because in each of these scenarios, the president could assert that he was simply executing the laws; or communicating with the Department of Justice; or discharging his powers as commander-in-chief; or engaging in foreign diplomacy, Smith wrote.

Under the defendants framework, the nation would have no recourse to deter a president from inciting his supporters during a State of the Union address to kill opposing lawmakers thereby hamstringing any impeachment proceeding to ensure that he remains in office unlawfully, he went on.

A White House spokesperson, citing its continuing policy, declined to discuss Trumps legal case but said that Biden had worked to restore the Department of Justices independence.