- cross-posted to:
- nottheonion
- cross-posted to:
- nottheonion
US presidents cannot be prosecuted for selling pardons or assassinating political rivals through SEAL Team Six, personal Trump lawyer John Sauer argued Tuesday
Advancing a sweeping interpretation of executive immunity, Donald Trump’s attorney told a federal appeals court on Tuesday that U.S. presidents could not be prosecuted for selling pardons or assassinating political rivals through SEAL Team Six.
Trump’s lead attorney D. John Sauer argued that only a president who has been impeached and removed from office in a Senate trial potentially would be subject to prosecution for those kinds of alleged crimes.
A three-judge panel appeared extremely skeptical of Trump’s vision of absolute immunity, sharply questioning and interrupting Sauer during the opening minutes of the oral arguments with the former president himself sitting nearby.
“Could a president order SEAL Team Six to assassinate a political rival? That’s an official act–an order to Seal Team Six,” U.S. Circuit Judge Florence Pan asked Sauer.
“He would have to be, and would speedily be, you know, impeached and convicted before the criminal prosecution,” Sauer replied, setting a pre-condition for such prosecution in Pan’s hypothetical.
So if Trump gets immunity… Does that mean Biden is of the hook for whatever bs the repubs want him impeached for? What would stop the Dems from “stealing” the election back? (Besides them having actual morals…)
Nope, he’d only be off the hook if his wrongdoing was connected to his duties as President. Ordering the military to assassinate Republican congressmen would be totally legit though, so in the end it doesn’t really matter.
No, they’re saying that impeachment and removal has to happen first.
So this means that Biden can just assassinate all of the GOP.