In a courtroom on Jan. 9, Donald Trump’s legal team argued in favor of total presidential immunity against all criminal charges. As part of their arguments, the former president’s lawyers said that Trump could not be criminally charged or held accountable for the ordered assassination of his political rivals, unless he was first impeached and then convicted on impeachment in the Senate.
The Senate famously failed to convict then-President Trump on impeachment even in the immediate aftermath of the deadly coup attempt of Jan. 6, 2021.
Straight Arrow News contributor David Pakman breaks down exactly what “Team Trump” is arguing for in the courtroom, and outlines the limits and legal precedents regarding U.S. presidential immunity for both civil and criminal charges. Pakman reminds readers that whatever presidential immunity policy applies to Trump must also apply to Biden, and wonders whether Republicans have considered this.
The discussion of presidential immunity has taken center stage based on some recent arguments made by the former President Donald Trump as well as his lawyers. And there are a couple of different aspects to this that I do think are really important to discuss, particularly in the context of the double standard that is being generated between Donald Trump and Joe Biden when it comes to presidential immunity.
So let me tell you first what has been said. And then we’ll talk about the implications and what legal precedent tells us about this. On the one hand, Donald Trump and his lawyers have been arguing Trump has immunity from criminal prosecution for anything that he did as president. And in a discussion with a panel of judges recently about exactly this issue, one of Donald Trump’s lawyers said that if Donald Trump were to order the assassination of a political rival, he would be immune from criminal prosecution unless he was impeached and convicted on impeachment.
In other words, in theory, a president could be criminally prosecuted for ordering the assassination of a political rival, but only if first, they are impeached and convicted on impeachment.