Donald Trump insists presidents enjoy "complete and total immunity" – even when they "cross the line" – but a legal expert said that argument won't get him far in court.
The quadruple-indicted former president compared himself to a "rogue cop" in a Thursday morning post on Truth Social, saying that Americans must simply "live with" wrongdoing by chief executives, but MSNBC legal analyst Andrew Weissmann doesn't believe any court will be persuaded by those claims.
"I think there is no question they're going to rule against Donald Trump, and I don't think that his recent tweet, to the extent that it comes to their attention, is going to help," Weissmann said. "In terms of Donald Trump's strategy of saying something that outlandish, it really does not help in terms of the court looking and realizing what they're being asked to do is going to be acted on by this man, so, strategically, it is a terrible idea. I think there's no way on God's green earth that this panel is going to find that he is immune from criminal prosecution. That has never been the law, and it is not going to be the law."
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is expected to rule as soon as Friday on the issue brought by the former president to evade prosecution in the federal election interference case, but Weissmann strongly doubts they will decide in Trump's favor.
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"I don't think that the courts are going to grant immunity," Weissmann said. "But just remember, Donald Trump becomes president, he will use his pardon power to, in effect, do what he is saying he would do if he can't get the courts to give him total immunity, which is that he can use the pardon power to pardon people who commit crimes, including crimes for him, as he has said with respect to the Jan. 6 people who he is now terming that they were hostages and not actually criminal defendants. So it's worth keeping an eye out for how other powers that he could have if he becomes president will be used in a way that gets him to the same end result."
Watch the video below or at this link.
- YouTubeyoutu.be
