Watergate prosecutor pours cold water on Trump's hopes the Supreme Court will save him
Appearing on CNN on New Year's Day, Watergate prosecutor Nick Akerman dismissed former Donald Trump's last gasp attempts to get the Supreme Court to intercede on his behalf as he battles the House committee on the Jan 6th insurrection.
As the year drew to a close, Trump has made multiple appeals to the conservative court to allow him to keep administration records away from the committee and, as Akerman explained, it's likely the court will either refuse to even consider his legal maneuvers or they will take a look and then rule against him.
Speaking with CNN host Paula Reid, Akerman didn't offer up much hope for the embattled former president.
"With Nixon with Watergate, [the court] ordered him to hand over materials and other subpoena materials," Reid began. "We learned that Trump has lost twice now in federal court. There's been a big debate will the Supreme Court even take up this case and, if they do, what will they rule? How do you see this playing out over the next couple weeks and months?"
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"You're right," the attorney replied. 'There are two courts, lower courts, District Court, and Circuit Court of Appeals in New York, basically issued very extensive opinions turning Trump down on the issues that he's raised. But ultimately, there are really two issues at play here: one is executive privilege. Trump is claiming that he has the right to assert executive privilege over the documents on January 6th. The problem with that argument is that the Supreme Court has already spoken to executive privilege back in 1974, when they ordered Nixon to produce his tapes."
"Privilege belongs to the government, to the republic," he continued. "It doesn't belong to the individual. It's not like the privilege to not incriminate yourself under the Fifth Amendment, which is an individual privilege, and Joe Biden, the present president, already determined in a very extensive writing that these documents do not come with an executive privilege."
"The Supreme Court has basically been limited to diplomatic, military, and national security matters," he elaborated. "It certainly doesn't cover a plot against the government to overthrow its normal processes. So it's very unlikely that Trump is going to succeed on that."
"Both opinions, the lower court opinions basically pointed out that in the face of Joe Biden's very detailed analysis as to why executive privilege does not apply and Trump has provided absolutely zero facts to explain why it does apply," Akerman added. "So it's very unlikely that that issue is really going to go anywhere."
"So when you take those two issues together, the executive privilege and the legislative purpose, and the fact that both courts have really extensively ruled on that, by all rights the Supreme Court should just deny the appeal and leave it at that," he stated before concluding, "Now, there's no guarantee that'll happen, but in the normal course, that is what should happen in this circumstance."
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