Trump Attorney Tells Judges Presidential Immunity Would Even Cover Assassinating Rivals, Selling Pardons
themessenger.com
U.S. presidents cannot be prosecuted for selling pardons or assassinating political rivals through SEAL Team Six, personal Trump lawyer John Sauer argued Tuesday.

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.

    • Godnroc@lemmy.world
      541·
      10 months ago

      Either his actions were treason and the sentence is death or his actions as president were untouchable in which case the president can shoot him without reprise. What a dangerous precedent to set!

    • TechyDad@lemmy.world
      2·
      10 months ago

      Only if the House didn’t impeach him and the Senate didn’t convict.

      So Biden would also have to kill as many Congressional Republicans as possible to prevent any impeachment vote from succeeding. This “legal theory” is essentially saying “one murder might be criminally liable, but mass murder of political opponents is just fine!”