Former president Donald Trump is pinning his courtroom victory hopes on a “sure loser” claim that a legal expert told Salon Tuesday is best described as “preposterous.”
The argument in question is Trump’s contention his efforts to reclaim the White House after the 2020 election are protected by presidential immunity.
Former prosecutor and current law professor Bennett Gershman told Salon that case doesn’t pass muster because the U.S. isn’t a monarchy and Trump isn’t king, “however much he may have thought he was."
“If his unlawful, unconstitutional, and criminal behavior can be deemed official acts, then we must deem Trump to have been King of America,” Gershman told Salon. “While his MAGA extremists might like that, that’s not how America works.”
This is also the argument the Supreme Court refused to consider at behest of Special Counsel Jack Smith, the Justice department prosecutor who has accused Trump of conspiring to defraud the U.S. by overturning a presidential election.
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That decision has since been kicked to an appeals court who will hear arguments in January.
Gershman does not predict it will go well for Trump.
“Trump’s claim of absolute immunity for his actions to try to subvert the results of the 2020 electoral given the uncontested facts is preposterous, nonsensical, and a sure loser,” Gershman told Salon.
Former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani agreed, according to Salon, but argued that winning isn’t the point.
“Trump is effectively using the executive immunity and double jeopardy appeal as a procedural tactic to delay his trial,” Rahmani told Salon.
“Trump's best defense has always been to push his criminal trials past the November election because if he regains the White House, a sitting president can't be prosecuted.”
