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(Picture by Mark Wilson/Getty)
This morning, Donald Trump traveled to DC to attend oral argument on the Circuit Court docket listening to on his presidential immunity claims. It’s the primary listening to he’s attended within the election interference case, and he might effectively remorse his choice to point out his face in the present day.
Briefly, it was a beatdown.
Judges Karen LeCraft Henderson, Michelle Childs, and Florence Pan took turns batting round Trump’s legal professional D. John Sauer, who was lowered to plaintively questioning if his time was up already and didn’t the court docket have extra urgent issues to take care of?
https://www.youtube.com/stay/PEQ1aToavl8?si=DDGvZp2Iw5QKboYO
The knifing began virtually instantly with Choose Pan posing the hypothetical of a president who ordered SEAL Group 6 to assassinate his political rival. Trump argues {that a} president is immune from prosecution for all official acts, and that he can solely be felony prosecuted for crimes dedicated in workplace if he’s first impeached by the Home and convicted by the Senate. Commanding the navy is certainly an official act, so by Trump’s logic, a president may by no means be prosecuted for it, even within the case of dispatching loss of life squads. Or if he might be prosecuted, that prosecution could be depending on Congress first impeaching and convicting him.
Sauer had no good reply for this, and so he resorted to yelling about Invoice Clinton promoting pardons, whereas unsubtly threatening that President Biden would quickly be indicted in Texas if the court docket refused to grant Trump absolute immunity for all crimes dedicated whereas in workplace.
On rebuttal, Choose Pan moved in for the kill, asking if the moment prosecution could be applicable had Republicans agreed to question Trump in 2021. Sauer tried to dodge, calling the costs towards his consumer multiply faulty. However by then, the injury was already accomplished.
Choose Childs appeared most within the threshold problem of whether or not the denial of dismissal based mostly on presidential immunity was instantly appealable. On this, each the plaintiff and defendant had been in settlement, though maybe for various causes. Trump has made it clear that his plan is to delay all of the circumstances towards him till after the election. However AUSA James Pearce, arguing on behalf of the federal government, urged the court docket to determine the difficulty now, to keep away from protracted appeals later.
Pearce bought little or no pushback from the court docket and was allowed to bury Trump’s weird double jeopardy argument and dance on its grave roughly uninterrupted. Though, to be honest, arguing that impeachment within the Home and acquittal within the Senate signifies that jeopardy attaches is spectacularly ridiculous, and straight contradicted by writings from the founding fathers. Plus there’s this uncomfortable admission from David Schoen, Trump’s lawyer within the second impeachment:
The Structure expressly gives in article I, part 3, clause 7 {that a} convicted social gathering, following impeachment, ‘‘shall nonetheless be liable and topic to indictment, trial, judgment, and punishment in accordance with legislation’’ [after removal]. Clearly, a former civil officer who just isn’t impeached is topic to the identical.
Doh!
Choose Henderson, probably the most conservative jurist on the panel, appeared serious about growing a presidential immunity customary based mostly not on whether or not the actions had been official, however by dividing the actions into ministerial or discretionary buckets. This rubric appeared unlikely to realize buy with the opposite panelists, but it surely was a lifeline to Sauer, and he took it. Earlier than racing for the exit, the lawyer begged the court docket to dismiss the case on his maximalist concept of presidential immunity for all acts undertaken whereas in workplace. But when not, he implored them to problem a mandate for Choose Chutkan to judge the precise conduct act by act to find out whether or not it was a part of Trump’s official (or ministerial or discretionary) responsibility. That may a minimum of purchase him a while, and possibly push the case off the trial calendar.
After which, maybe in deference to his consumer’s presence within the courtroom, Sauer made the compulsory accusation that President Biden is prosecuting his “chief electoral opponent who’s successful in each ballot.”
DRINK! If not with Sauer, than in his honor. As a result of after that asskicking, he’s going to wish a stiff one.
US v. Trump [District Docket via Court Listener]US v. Trump [Circuit Docket via Court Listener]
Liz Dye lives in Baltimore the place she writes the Legislation and Chaos substack and seems on the Opening Arguments podcast.
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