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.

  • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    27·
    10 months ago

    So this means its open Trump hunting season for Biden, right? It is totally legal and cool for him to assassinate Trump, right??

    Of course we all know they intend for this argument to only apply to Trump.

    • yo_scottie_oh@lemmy.mlEnglish
      14·
      10 months ago

      No. If you read the article, you’ll see that this isn’t Sauer’s argument. It’s another ragebait title, and based on the comments in this thread, it’s working.

      EDIT: Okay, I see the flaw in my thinking. Carry on.

      • modifier@lemmy.ca
        7·
        10 months ago

        Oh right on, hey call it off guys and gals. This dude read the article and says democracy is going to be just fine.

        Edit: much respect to anyone willing to update their conclusions based on new input.

      • Heresy_generator@kbin.social
        5·
        10 months ago

        His argument is that there would be no possible legal recourse if a US president tried to seize absolute power the way Saddam Hussein did in Iraq, by having everyone in the legislature that might oppose him lined up and shot.

    • TechyDad@lemmy.world
      2·
      9 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!”

    • lad@programming.dev
      1·
      10 months ago

      What a fitting show for this timeline it would’ve been to see Putin and Trump competing for the president 🤔

  • Zoots@lemmy.worldEnglish
    6·
    9 months ago

    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

  • fubarx@lemmy.ml
    5·
    9 months ago

    If you take that argument to the logical extreme, a President who has committed all those bad acts can:

    • Stop all investigations of said bad acts, therefore avoiding impeachment.

    • Threaten any member of the House that is thinking of voting to impeach him.

    • On the off-chance is impeached and is now waiting the verdict of the Senate, have every incentive to offer all kinds of corrupt deals (free pardons, private arms deals, etc) to Senators to buy their vote. This way, they won’t be convicted in the Senate and they can keep enjoying their infinite immunity forever.

    Neat-o.

    • TechyDad@lemmy.world
      4·
      9 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·
        9 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·
        9 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.

  • Nougat@kbin.social
    3·
    10 months ago

    Pan reframed the question to include a hypothetical where a president ordered assassination and then was not impeached, and Sauer still hung on to “impeachment has to happen first.”

  • vexikron@lemmy.zip
    3·
    10 months ago

    And so after years upon years upon decades of rhetoric from Republicans warning about the growing power of the Executive and the abuses of the Executive by FDR…

    … uh, nevermind all that apparently, if our guy is in charge he should be able to just unilaterally assasinate political rivals.

    You know. Like anyone that would vote to impeach him. For assassinating political rivals.

    This is literal baby brain logic that actual Elementary School Children could probably understand is stupid.

    Hooray for living in Clown World, the dumbest possible timeline.

    This is basically logic that can only possibly have come from serious QTard Syndrome, Terminal Stage. Its the only way possible for /the Storm/ to actually happen.

  • Tremble@sh.itjust.works
    31·
    10 months ago

    Seal team six perched in the rafters during the state of the union address.

    Biden: And now I will receive a round of applause from my good Republican colleagues. Clap, motherfuckers!