In court hearing, Trump lawyer argues a sitting president would be immune from prosecution

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Washington Post

NEW YORK CITY — President Trump’s private attorney said Wednesday that the president could not be investigated or prosecuted as long as he is in the White House, even for shooting someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue.

The claim of “temporary presidential immunity” from Trump’s private attorney William S. Consovoy came in court in response to a judge’s question that invoked the president’s own hypothetical scenario. As a candidate in 2016, Trump said his support was so strong he could “stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody” and not “lose any voters.”

The president’s lawyer was asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit to block a subpoena for Trump’s private financial records from New York prosecutors investigating hush-money payments made before the 2016 election. The judges seemed skeptical of the president’s sweeping claims of immunity not just from prosecution, but also from investigation.

Judge Denny Chin pressed Consovoy about the hypothetical shooting in the middle of Manhattan. “Local authorities couldn’t investigate? They couldn’t do anything about it?” he asked. “This is not a permanent immunity,” Consovoy responded. “We’re talking about while in office.”

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/ny-based-appeals-court-to-decide-whether-manhattan-da-can-get-trumps-tax-returns/2019/10/22/8c491346-ef6e-11e9-8693-f487e46784aa_story.html

---

Full headline: In court hearing, Trump lawyer argues a sitting president would be immune from prosecution even if he were to shoot someone

[cstanleytech]

1. The Constitution does not grant a President immunity from being investigated at all and

nor does it grant them immunity from being prosecuted for a crime they may have committed.

[BumRushDaShow]

3. Let alone

on something that happened before he was President!

[cstanleytech]

12. I was going to say that at first but really its immaterial if it was before

or after as a crime is a crime.
Granted a President has leeway such as when it comes to ordering US troops to do something but even that has its limits on what is permissible under the Constitution.

[Thomas Hurt]

2. If he can't be investigated or prosecuted ever while in office, he becomes King,

he doesn't have to leave office because even if it is unconstitutional or illegal, he can't be investigated or prosecuted.

Idiots

[BumRushDaShow]

4. It's a hail Mary pass

and will determine (and I know it sounds hyperbolic) if this country's current system of government survives. They want to see how far they can go with testing it.

[thesquanderer]

5. re: "immune from prosecution"--sounds like not just that, but even immune from INVESTIGATION! nt

[apnu]

6. I recall many Republican lawyers saying this about W's Admin.

The Republicans have been sniffing at this dubious legal notion for 20 years at least.

[cstanleytech]

13. I suspect its because some of them have the goal of anointing one of their own as a new king with

the power of judge, jury and executioner.

[onetexan]

19. that's of course because if they do it it's ok. If Dems do it, it's not acceptable. Oh the hypocrisy

[Bernardo de La Paz]

7. The "not investigated" part begs belief. Evidence must always be preserved. . . . nt

[unblock]

8. according to these nazis, a president can even commit electoral crimes and not be investigated.

according to this idiotic theory, a president can even commit any number of crimes in order to get re-elected, or in order to get his supporters elected in congress.

there is absolutely no way in hell the framers of the constitution would have wanted anything of the sort. remember that there weren't originally term limits on the presidency, so this "theory" implies that the founders wanted the president to be a permanent tyrant, capable of committing crime after crime in the open for as long as he cares to continue stealing the presidency.

it's a completely bonkers notion, in terms of constitutional theory or any theory of good governance.

[BumRushDaShow]

9. But what was worse, their argument was

to the incredulity of one of the judges, that yes, he could "shoot someone on Fifth Avenue" and still not be prosecuted - as long as he was still in office.

[unblock]

11. that may hit people emotionally, but from a governance point of view, electoral crimes are worse.

part of their argument is that the immunity from prosecution is only "temporary".

well, it's less and less temporary if you can commit crimes to get re-elected.

but yes, some of the crimes may have nothing to do with politics. or they may.


according to this "theory", a president could kidnap the children of representatives and senators and hold them hostage for years and threaten to kill them if they ever try to impeach him. hell, he could actually kill representatives, senators, judges, and justices in order to preserve and extend power.

this is the "theory" of a despotic dictatorship, not a theory that has anything to do with the constitution.

[BumRushDaShow]

18. I just posted a tweet from a WaPo reporter that had an audio clip of their idiotic argument

Link to tweet

TEXT

Zach Purser Brown
✔
@zachjourno

New York hearing on Trump's financial records:

JUDGE: "So what's your view on the 5th Av. example? Local authorities couldn't investigate? They couldn't do anything about it?"

...

TRUMP ATTORNEY: "No"

“Nothing could be done? That is your position?”

“That is correct”

They may have a "theory" but they have now tried to argue it in federal court.

[DeminPennswoods]

10. Jones v Clinton established that sitting presidents could face lawsuits

for any illegalities they did before becoming president. The Vance investigation covers the years before Trump was elected and therefore under the Jones v Clinton precedent is a-ok.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

14. The asshole really wants to be dictator

[PoliticAverse]

15. "The President wants me to argue that he is as powerful a monarch as Louis XIV,"...

The President wants me to argue that he is as powerful a monarch as Louis XIV, only four years at a time, and is not subject to the processes of any court in the land except the court of impeachment.

United States v. Nixon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Nixon

(Decided against Nixon)

[pwb]

16. Can we charge a standing President???

.

[beachbumbob]

17. cheney made up the imperial presidentcy and the democrats failed to challenge it

nearly 20 years ago.

this is the same bullshit line and time to end it. A president is not immune to ANYTHING when crimes been committed no can he block investigations int o crimes he may have committed

[onetexan]

20. Cheney should have been tried by the international courts

[Nitram]

21. Even if he is immune to prosecution while in office, he can still be impeached and removed from

office. THEN he can be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. I believe that is the plan.

[BumRushDaShow]

22. The problem however

is if you have a President commit murder while in office, the founders really never considered that this would be immune.

And if anything, what the Manhattan D.A. is looking for has to do with potential crimes that happened before the Presidency. What might be somewhat comparable is what happened with Agnew, who also wanted to assert that, but who ended up finally deciding to do a plea deal after resigning.

[Nitram]

25. Once again, the founders provided for removal of a president from office.

At that point they can be prosecuted to the full extant of the law. They are not immune from prosecution during their time in office. While a president cannot be prosecuted while in office, a president removed from office by impeachment is no longer immune to prosecution.

[BumRushDaShow]

27. Well that interpretation was the DOJ OLC opinion

not settled law (or court opinion) with respect to actually prosecuting while in office.

I suppose the closest example of a test of the "shoot someone on Fifth Avenue" argument was the Burr-Hamilton duel where you have a VP kill the Secretary of the Treasury and actually be charged with murder (among other charges) while in office - but the issue devolved into a somewhat contrived technicality/excuse regarding the state where the crime happened vs the state where the victim eventually died and by then, he had fled to a different state from those that were charging (and I expect there was little precedence in terms of how one might extradite a criminal, let alone one like him who had been elected to a higher office), and so no trials resulted. But it seemed that an attempt was made while he was still holding the office, to actually file charges.

[Shoonra]

23. How come this argument didn't work for Nixon?

Remember, Nixon also resisted subpoenas for his tapes and even the US Supreme Court said he's have to comply .... even while he was still in the White House. Since then nothing was added to the Constitution to give Trump this pretended immunity.

Altho I would argue that since even Trump believes any such immunity ends when he leaves the Presidency, that fact in itself justifies impeachment and removal to enable the subpoena to be effective.

[tclambert]

24. What if the President were a Democrat?

[BumRushDaShow]

26. Supposedly Clinton was going to make the same argument

and not go to the grand jury he was subpoenaed for but then eventually did the right and honorable thing and testified, despite the ridiculousness of the GOP push for it after they had taken back the House (and there is plenty of Lindsey Graham video about that too). Of course the rest is history at this point.

But that is what (so far) makes this situation different - the GOP has no honor (the idiots running the clown show are all those teabaggers that mostly got elected in 2010 and later, with a few veterans like Gohmert who was in earlier but joined them) and it will become a squeeze play to see if they eventually capitulate and follow the law or do the arrogant Wiley E. Coyote fly off the cliff.