- 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.
I know that’s what he said, but is that actually written down anywhere that that’s actually the case? Seems to me, if it was actually the case, there shouldn’t be this much hand-wringing.
Is there a good legal basis for what he said (that prosecuting the president takes an extra step compared to prosecuting anyone else)? Maybe not. It’s just different than saying the president can never be prosecuted. I posted a link nearby that goes into more detail.