When former President Donald Trump's lawyers appeared in federal appeals court Tuesday, the odds were already not in their favor. And they seemed to grow slimmer the more they argued their case. At issue was their claim that, as a former president, their client has immunity from the criminal charges that a grand jury impaneled by special counsel Jack Smith brought in an election interference case. The three-judge panel that heard their arguments was rightly skeptical — and at one point used a former member of their client's defense team to poke holes in their flimsy legal theories. Trump is attempting to make two interlocking farcical arguments in this case. I've previously debunked one of them, which posits that to prosecute a president who was acquitted in a Senate impeachment trial would violate the "double jeopardy" clause of the Fifth Amendment. The second argument, made by his lawyer John Sauer, is that the former president enjoys a blanket immunity for actions he took in office, one that can be overcome only in the event of a conviction in the Senate. This is a preview of Hayes Brown's latest article. Read the full column here. |
