Washington DC - Donald Trump will be present on Tuesday when a federal appeals court hears his arguments for why he should be immune to prosecution in the Justice Department's 2020 election subversion case.

A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit faces questions not only about how they might rule but how quickly, since any ruling on the issue is expected to be appealed to the Supreme Court and a trial is set for March.

Prosecutors in four different criminal cases have pushed for trials before the 2024 election, while the frontrunner for the Republican nomination has sought to run out the clock.

The 77-year-old has argued for months to dismiss the case on the basis that his broad effort to overturn his 2020 election loss were "quintessential presidential acts," as laid out in a brief to the appellate court.

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He repeated those claims in a post on his Truth Social platform on Sunday while also announcing that he will be attending the hearing.

"Of course I was entitled, as President of the United States and Commander in Chief, to Immunity," he wrote. "I wasn’t campaigning, the Election was long over. I was looking for voter fraud, and finding it, which is my obligation to do, and otherwise running running [sic] our Country."

Trump's legal team also maintains he cannot be tried for a crime that the Senate acquitted him of in a February 2021 impeachment trial. The briefs at the DC Circuit referred to it as a "double jeopardy" principle, that defendants cannot be tried for the same crime twice.

District Judge Tanya Chutkan of the US District Court for the District of Columbia rejected those arguments last year, writing that the president is not above the law and can face federal charges for conduct that occurred during his term.

Trump's appeal of that decision, which will be hashed out at oral arguments Tuesday, put the case on hold and could derail the planned March jury trial.

Still, even as he has fought to delay the Washington federal case, his election year could soon fill up with courtroom litigation.

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Smith also serves as a prosecutor in the other federal criminal case against Trump in Florida, which was initially scheduled for a May trial on charges related to improper handling of classified documents.

There's also the New York state case alleging Trump falsified business records to hide hush payments as part of his 2016 presidential, which was also initially set for March but might be rescheduled next month.

Prosecutors in Georgia, where Trump and more than a dozen co-defendants face state charges tied to the effort to overturn the 2020 result in the state, have proposed an August 5 trial for Trump, but no date has been set.