'No way he's going to win this': Experts warn Trump on immunity plea
Donald Trump will appear in court on Tuesday and watch as his lawyers make the case that he has a kind of special presidential immunity that protects him against prosecutions for purportedly official acts he took as president.
Andrew Weissmann, a former senior prosecutor to Robert Mueller, explained that the Justice Department would be arguing that there is no doctrine of presidential immunity for presidents when it comes to a criminal case, regardless of what is happening in a civil capacity.
"I'm going to see whether the court adopts that broad sweep that Judge Tanya Chutkan did," said Weissmann during an appearance on Lawrence O'Donnell's show on MSNBC. "Their backup argument is that even if it applies to what's called the 'outer perimeter' of the president's functions, this case does not involve conduct that is within the president's functions."
Read More: Donald Trump’s un-American ploy for criminal immunity
The NYU Law School professor said that he views Judge Chutkan's decision as "the more correct" view of what has been ruled on by the Supreme Court and courts of appeals.
"The second issue I'm gonna be really focused on is whether they address the stay, and whether it was appropriate for this case to be heard by the D.C. Circuit at this time because the clock is everything here," he said, referencing Trump's demand to put everything on pause while his "immunity" is considered by every court.
Weissmann went on to make clear that he thinks Trump has no hope at the appeals court.
"If you are a president or a former president, and you are worried about doing something that is criminal, that's not a bad thing," he explained. "That's a good thing for the law to hold you accountable if you are actually thinking of violating the law. We do not want a system where... that is not possible. In many ways, the big lesson that we are discussing this tonight. But it's a sign of what we have come to that this is actually a serious issue that is going to be addressed by the court. Because... I think there's no way that Donald Trump is going to win this argument [Tuesday]."
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