M.L. Nestel joined Raw Story in 2023. An award-winning writer and editor, his work has been published in New York Magazine, Los Angeles Magazine and The Guardian, among other titles. He also produces and writes for true-crime genre TV shows. Prior to that, he served on the Newsweek masthead as a senior writer, wrote as a correspondent at ABC News and held the titles of West Coast bureau chief and senior writer at The Daily Beast. Priors also include working as senior national correspondent at The Daily Mail and investigative reporter at all three NYC tabloids: The New York Post,The New York Daily News and Newsday. He traveled around the country as a national correspondent at The Daily. M.L. published hundreds of stories about underground music and cinema — most notably as a critic for Box Office Magazine and the New York editor at Soma Magazine. He also headed development at Fountainhead Films. M.L. splits his time between Los Angeles and New York.
Former President Donald Trump's purported dictator aspirations were destroyed by three judges on Tuesday and former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann believes the totalitarian aims that Trumphas boasted he'd implement were exposed in his fight to prove he deserved absolute immunity.
"Look at the decision, in terms of what Donald Trump is saying," Weissmann said. "It's not one day. His claims, these are not abstract. He is saying 'I, when I become president...' he is saying 'I should have the unbounded authority to commit crimes. I should not have the check of an electorate to remove me.'"
The three-judge panel that makes up the U.S. Court of Appeals denied Trump's claim of presidential immunity that he had attempted to plea in order to defend himself in the federal criminal election interference case.
Weissmann took special interest in line from the 57-page ruling that reads: "At bottom, former President Trump's stance would collapse our system of separated powers by placing the President beyond the reach of all three Branches."
The case is now going to be await an appeal, which Trump's camp has already said it is filing, and could be off to the Supreme Court — should they decide to take the case.
For Weissman, the judges are not only denying "citizen Trump" on the merits of his argument, but that the argument itself is one professing to be a dictator for as long as he desired.
"That is a claim to the D.C. Circuit, of being a dictator," said Weissmann. "That that is what he wants, this idea that 'Oh, I didn't really mean it, it is only for a day!' — No. He tried to get the D.C. Circuit to go along with that. So of course that was going to be rejected."
He added: "But to me what is preposterous is that this is somebody who is actually a serious candidate to run for office, when he is running on something that you now have a unanimous decision saying this is fundamentally, his view is fundamentally antithetical to the American system of justice."
