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.

  • TechyDad@lemmy.world
    6·
    10 months ago

    Or just go one step further and have all Congressional members of the opposing party killed.

    Biden would never do this and I don’t want him to, but let’s suppose that Trump’s “legal theory” is correct and Biden wakes up tomorrow thinking that he’s sick of dealing with the Republicans’ malarkey. He orders some military groups known to be loyal to him to round up every Republican member of Congress along with certain Supreme Court justices. They are all executed. Then Trump is brought in and executed as well.

    Now what would happen? Would Biden be charged with mass murder? No, he’s immune to prosecution. You need to impeach and convict him first. But nobody remains who would impeach him. So he’s totally immune as he appoints left leaning Supreme Court justices and expands his “early Republican retirement program” to right leaning Federal judges.

    Again, I wouldn’t want him doing this, but according to Trump this would be totally legal.

    • splicerslicer@lemmy.world
      3·
      10 months ago

      Look up the tape of sadaam Hussein rising to power, that’s exactly what he did. Had all of his enemies carted out in front of everyone to be executed. That’s the future trump wants for us.

    • DrinkMonkey@lemmy.ca
      2·
      10 months ago

      But nobody remains who would impeach him

      I want to believe there would be a principled few who would. But someone who would murder their opponents would also murder their colleagues, and they’d all know this, so…yeah.