As the Supreme Court takes up claims this week from Donald Trump’s legal camp that he is eligible to invoke his presidential immunity powers, guaranteed by the Constitution, to avoid prosecution for allegations of election interference, media outlets are attempting to cast comments made by his lawyer as an endorsement of political assassinations.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor grilled Trump lawyer D. John Sauer on the topic of presidential immunity, attempting to trap him into admitting this would apply to orders for violence.
SOTOMAYOR: Now I think—and your answer below, I’m going to give you a chance to say if you stay by it—if the president decides that his rival is a corrupt person and he orders the military or orders someone to assassinate him, is that within his official acts that for which he can get immunity?
SAUER: It would depend on the hypothetical. We can see that could well be an official act.
SOTOMAYOR: It could. And why? Because he’s doing it for personal reasons. He’s not doing it, like President Obama is alleged to have done it, to protect the country from a terrorist. He’s doing it for personal gain. And isn’t that the nature of the allegations here, that he’s not doing them, doing these acts in furtherance of an official responsibility? He’s doing it for personal gain.
SAUER: I agree with that characterization of the indictment. And that confirms immunity, because the characterization is that there’s a series of official acts that were done for an unlawful or improper purpose—
Justice Sotomayor: If a president says a rival is corrupt and orders their assassination, "is that within his official acts for which he can get immunity?"
Trump lawyer D. John Sauer: "It would depend on the hypothetical, but we can see that could well be an official act." pic.twitter.com/PXsPyeNC28
— PBS NewsHour (@NewsHour) April 25, 2024
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Sotomayor attempted to classify the immunity claims from the Trump camp as an attempt to argue Trump is “entitled” to pursue his personal gain without facing criminal liability.
Sauer shot back citing Fitzgerald, arguing that the allegation of improper purpose cannot be enough to invalidate immunity claims, otherwise the presidential immunity clause would be rendered powerless.
Mediate ran the headline, “Trump’s Lawyer Tries to Convince a Stunned Sotomayor: President Has Immunity to Order Assassinations of Rivals.” The Drudge Report, linking to this, wrote, “Supreme Court Shock: Trump Claims Assassination Privilege! Kill A Rival, Kill An Enemy Kill Hillary? What If ‘King’ Orders Coup?” Similar headlines were ran by Yahoo, Salon, ABC, Semafor, and many others.
The Supreme Court also suggested today that it would drag out Trump’s immunity claim that would ensure he would not go to trial for election overturning charges until after the election.
Asking questions to insinuate that Trump is in favor of tyrannical and dictatorial actions is in line with a trend among the managerial this election cycle, who are seemingly trying to build a legal case for yet another impeachment against Trump or a similar action to undermine his ascension to the presidency. Commentators with connections to the Intelligence Community and the State Department have claimed there are clear indications Trump will pursue an autocratic agenda if he becomes president again. During a primary town hall event in early January, Fox hosts gave Trump a soft ball question to allow him to clear the air and confirm he would not become a “dictator.” Then, in mid-March, the media fomented a frenzy around Trump’s use of the word “bloodbath,” taking it out of context to frame him as calling for widespread vigilante political violence.
Meanwhile, Democratic strategist James Carville casually termed Biden’s opposition effort against Trump “wetwork,” explaining that it is a CIA term for assassination, being met with zero pushback from CNN host Anderson Cooper. Robert Kagan, the husband of former Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, wrote a piece in The Washington Post in which he likened Trump to Julius Caesar, the ancient Roman dictator who was murdered by members of the senate to end his reign.
Shane Devine is a writer covering politics and business for VT and a regular guest on The Unusual Suspects. Follow Shane’s work here.
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