Legal analyst Lisa Rubin doesn't know how the Supreme Court could decide that Donald Trump has any kind of immunity given where they stood in past rulings or even personal history.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh, for example, first started out in politics, working on special counsel Ken Starr's investigation against President Bill Clinton. But even after that, Kavanaugh's rulings made it clear that he believes presidents shouldn't have any kind of criminal immunity.
MSNBC host Alicia Menendez wondered if the Supreme Court was afraid of oral arguments in the case.
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"If you're the Supreme Court justices — if you feel there is a danger in having oral arguments where you play out all these various hypotheticals?" she asked.
"I don't know what the danger is because, on some level, it illustrates how ridiculous, facially, the position is, as well as ahistorical," Rubin explained. "The pardon of Richard Nixon is premised on the presumption that you can have an official act that is worthy of prosecution. We have known that for some time. The very case of Trump vs. Vance, while it's not about the investigation of an official act, is premised on the fact that the former president can be criminally prosecuted."
That decision, she said, was 7-2, with Kavanaugh writing his own decision, making it clear that no president is above the law.
"The breadcrumbs have been left for a long time," Rubin explained. "I'm not sure what the danger is if it exposes to a more general public how absolutely, facially — parodying it almost is."
Menendez said that Rubin is looking at the problem as a lawyer and with logic at a time when the Supreme Court is making decisions based on politics. Trump's argument, in particular, she said, isn't a legal one; it's a hypothetical one.
Trump claims that if there is no presidential immunity, then all presidents could be prosecuted. In fact, the law outlines a difference between official acts made on behalf of the country and acts made for personal gratification. Nixon's Watergate scandal was about his campaign, not the presidency.
In response to the political claims by Trump, analysts have explained that the U.S. made it 234 years without a president attempting to overthrow the election. That's why there haven't been any prosecutions for that.
See the full discussion in the video below or at the link here.
'Breadcrumbs have been left': Legal analyst says of SCOTUS striking down Trump immunityyoutu.be
