Trump Argues In Court That He Can Legally Use The Military To Murder His Political Opponents & Enemies If He's President Again
Hypothetically . . . of course.
As Team Trump has leaked to the media plans of what Trump plans to do if re-elected this November — destroy what remains of democracy in the United States and transform the nation into an authoritarian dictatorship, unilaterally fire as many as 50,000 career government employees and install pre-vetted MAGA loyalists in their place, round up millions of both immigrants (undocumented and documented) and send them to large-scale concentration camps, and cancel all future elections — his lawyers argued in court on Tuesday that presidential immunity includes the power to use the U.S. military to murder a political rival (or perhaps a Senator who insulted him or maybe one of the more than two dozen women who has credibly accused him of rape and/or sexual assault) without fear of any punishment — as long as he was not impeached and convicted by Congress first.
Hypothetically, of course.
Judge Florence Pan: Could a president order S.E.A.L. Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? That is an official act, an order to S.E.A.L. Team 6.
Trump Attorney John Sauer: He would have to be and would speedily be, you know, impeached and convicted before the criminal prosecution.
Judge Pan: But if he weren’t, there would be no criminal prosecution, no criminal liability for that?
Sauer: [inaudible] the chief justice's opinion [unclear] vs Madison and our Constitution and the plain language of the impeachment judgment clause, all clearly pre-suppose that what the founders were concerned about was not —
Judge Pan: I asked you a Yes or No question. Could a president who ordered S.E.A.L. Team 6 to assassinate a political rival, who was not impeached, would he be subject to criminal prosecution?
Sauer: If he were impeached and convicted first. And —
Judge Pan: So your answer is — no?
Sauer: My answer is qualified yes.
This court room exchange occurred only one day after reports of an audio recording of longtime Trump ally Roger Stone discussing a plot to assassinate two Democratic congressmen before the 2020 election.
Let’s go find [Eric] Swalwell. It’s time to do it. Then we’ll see how brave the rest of them are. It’s time to do it. It’s either [Jerry] Nadler or Swalwell has to die before the election. They need to get the message. Let’s go find Swalwell and get this over with. I’m just not putting up with this shit anymore.
So perhaps not so hypothetical. Trump could be attempting to establish a legal foundation for some of the things he plans to do in 2025. Trump is unlikely to prevail on this point, as the judges actually seemed surprised, if not shocked, at what Trump’s counsel stated. (If the ruling unexpectedly goes Trump’s way, shouldn’t he be worried about getting iced by Dark Brandon?)
As David A. Graham writes in The Atlantic:
Donald Trump has always displayed authoritarian impulses, but the Trump who is running for president now is not the same as the Trump who ran in 2016. He is more ruthless, more dangerous, and more authoritarian than before. And today in a federal court in Washington, D.C., with Trump present, his attorneys offered perhaps the boldest assertion of power that any major American candidate has ever made. . . .
Eight years ago, in January 2016, Trump marveled at his supporters’ devotion. “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, okay?” he said at a rally in Iowa. “It’s, like, incredible.” The statement was astonishing, but it could also have been interpreted as something of a joke. In retrospect, it was an early step in his realization that few bounds might exist on his behavior.
His lawyers’ comments now are a logical, if scary, extension of that remark. Back then, Trump was musing about commonplace murder. Now the topic is the assassination of a political rival, using the force of the U.S. military. . . .
The Framers of the Constitution may well have assumed that any president would be impeached and convicted quickly if he (for example) ordered an act of political murder. That assumption no longer holds . . .
In effect, Trump has realized that, just as none of his voters would desert him over murdering a man on Fifth Avenue, nothing he could do would be so bad that congressional Republicans would abandon him. He doesn’t need a majority, either. Under the argument his lawyers made in court today, all Trump needs is 34 Republicans who will vote not to convict, and that’s sufficient to guarantee he can act with impunity.
Trump’s lawyer during his second impeachment trial argued that Trump should not be convicted by Congress and removed from office, because Trump can always be arrested and criminally prosecuted when he’s out of office. Today, Trump’s lawyer argued the exact opposite.
Rep. Jamie Raskin said Trump’s lawyers reminded him of three-card monte dealers:
They want to turn around and say, well, if you’re not impeached and convicted first, you can’t be convicted later. I think the entire country, and certainly the entire judiciary, even Clarence Thomas, can see through that one. . . .
When I heard Donald Trump make this argument, all I could think was, they’re saying they have a right to engage in political assassination of their rivals. If you can kill one person, certainly you can kill several of them. Let’s say then they feel like they might be convicted in the Senate, but if they could just knock off three people who were going to vote to convict him, then he’d be all right. Then they go ahead and murder them, then he can’t be convicted, then he can’t be prosecuted. I honestly believe this Supreme Court is not so corrupted it will fall for an argument as corrupt and pernicious as this one.
MSNBC’s Chris Hayes:
As far as I can tell, this is an argument they appear to have basically invented out of whole cloth in the last 24 hours.
Remember when we said fascism was coming, and people said, don't be silly?