Trump’s Ridiculous Legal Argument Too Much for Fox News’ Jonathan Turley: ‘A Dead Letter’
Fox News legal analyst Jonathan Turley told the network’s viewers on Tuesday that Donald Trump’s latest legal argument doesn’t pass the smell test.
Trump attorney John Sauer argued before the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday, telling a three-judge panel the former president should be immune from his ongoing federal prosecution for attempting to overturn the 2020 election. The lawyer claimed Trump’s actions are covered by presidential immunity because they were done in his official capacity as president and because the Senate did not convict him for it.
Judge Florence Pan asked Sauer if this conception of presidential immunity would extend to political assassinations:
PAN: Could a president order Seal Team Six to assassinate a political rival? That’s an official act, an order to Seal Team Six.
SAUER: He would have to be and would speedily be, you know, uh, impeached and convicted before the criminal prosecution–
PAN: But there would be no criminal prosecution, no criminal liability for that?
SAUER: Chief Justice’s opinion in Marbury against Madison and, uh, uh, and our Constitution and the plain language of the impeachment judgment clause all clearly presuppose that what the founders were concerned about was not.
PAN: I asked you a yes, no, yes or no question. Could a president who ordered Seal Team Six to assassinate a political rival, who was not impeached, would he be subject to criminal prosecution?
SAUER: If he were impeached and convicted first.
After playing audio of the exchange on America Reports on Fox News, host Sandra Smith asked Turley to opine.
“Is that the case, Jonathan?” she asked. “Can a president under certain circumstances order the assassination of a political rival and receive immunity for it?”
“I don’t believe it is the case,” Turley replied. “This was really, I think very illustrative of how the argument went. It was a series of jump scares. Both sides were presenting these parades of horribles that would come if you don’t accept our argument. I think what was clear to me from the argument was that probably Trump’s– this argument of impeachment first, prosecution later, is a dead letter with the panel. I don’t believe that the judges agree that you needed a conviction to ever prosecute a president.”
Turley went on to say that there is nonetheless “a lot of ambiguity” when it comes to immunity for former presidents.
“The question is what the court described in Nixon versus Fitzgerald as the outer parameters of presidential authority or duties,” he continued. “And the question is, does this fit within that gray area? Because the Supreme Court and the lower courts have struggled for this, and it’s not clear. So, there’s legitimate debate here.”
As Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) noted on CNN, requiring a Senate conviction as a precondition for criminal prosecution would incentivize impeached presidents to order the assassinations of senators inclined to vote to convict.
Watch above via Fox News.
