As oral arguments at the Supreme Court on the question of Donald Trump’s immunity from criminal prosecution got underway Thursday, Trump’s lawyer started out by saying a president could assassinate a political rival if it could be considered an “official act.”
“If the president decides that his rival is a corrupt person and he orders the military … to assassinate him, is that within his official acts for which he can get immunity?” Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked Trump attorney John Sauer.
Sauer, invoking an argument he made previously before Thursday replied: “It could well be an official act.”
When Sotomayor pressed him if it mattered if the former president was doing it for his “personal gain,” Sauer offered a condition.
“A president is entitled for total personal gain to use the trappings of his office … without facing criminal liability.”
The content of the alleged improper act isn’t what the liability hinges on anyway, according to Sauer.
At the start of arguments Thursday, the attorney said if a president can be charged, put on trial and imprisoned for his “most controversial decisions as soon as he leaves office, that looming threat will distort the presidency’s decision-making precisely when bold and fearless action is needed.”
Former presidents like George W. Bush and Barack Obama and current President Joe Biden could be prosecuted for their conduct while in office if the court rules against Trump here, Sauer argued.
Historically, Trump has argued that because Obama used drone strikes that killed American citizens abroad, he should have been prosecuted but was not. He has also pointed to former President George W. Bush and has said that he could be held to account for dragging the United States into war in Iraq.
Sotomayor told Sauer she was having a “hard time” with this line of reasoning and others.
“I’m having a hard time thinking that creating false documents, that submitting false documents, that ordering the assassination of a rival, that accepting a bribe and a countless other laws that could be broken for personal gain, that anyone would say it would be reasonable for a president, or any public official to do that,” she said.
The post ‘That could well be an official act’: Trump attorney tells Supreme Court a president assassinating rival could be immune from prosecution first appeared on Law & Crime.
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Author: Brandi Buchman
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