Trump lawyer backtracks on whether he could be prosecuted even if convicted by Senate

Trump lawyer Dean John Sauer argued Tuesday that the only way his client could be criminally prosecuted for any crime he committed while president would be if he were first convicted in the United States Senate.

While that interpretation of the United States Constitution was seen as extreme by many legal experts, Sauer made it even more so during the end of the appeals court hearing into Trump's claim of immunity by hedging on whether Trump would be liable for prosecution even if two-thirds of the United States Senate had found him guilty of inciting an insurrection.

As reported by CBS News' Scott MacFarlane, Judge Florence Pan asked Sauer whether he believed if the government could have prosecuted Trump if the Senate had found him guilty, and Sauer refused to give her a straight yes-or-no answer.

Pressed further on this by Pan, Sauer said that "a prosecution," but not "this prosecution," against Trump would be theoretically possible with the addition of a senate conviction.

ALSO READ: Overcoming the Fox News-Musk-Trump propaganda machine

When asked again by Pan for a straight answer to her question, Sauer would only acknowledge that Trump could "potentially" be prosecuted if the Senate convicted him of inciting an insurrection at the United States Capitol building.

The questioning over Trump's criminal liability came as his lawyers argued that trying him criminally after he was acquitted of inciting insurrection in an impeachment hearing in the Senate in 2021 would amount to double jeopardy, despite the fact that impeachment is a political and not a legal process and despite the fact that the criminal charges Trump is facing now related to the January 6th riots are completely different from the ones he faced during his second impeachment.