Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) And Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-NY) Discuss About Their Take On The Hearing Delays Of Former President Trump;
Interview
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Well, I reacted very similarly to my friend, Liz Cheney. The people have a right to know what happened and I think the Supreme Court, which is lopsided with gerrymandered right wing appointments, is really slowing things down here.
The D.C. Circuit Court opinion was perfectly clear and totally compelling in saying that there was no basis at all to Donald Trump's fraudulent claim that a president is absolutely immune to criminal prosecution for criminal acts undertaken allegedly in pursuit of his office unless he's first impeached or convicted in the Senate, which, of course, has never happened in American history. And so that is the claim of an entitlement to Roy (ph) to be a king, to be a dictator and so it's very dangerous.
I hope that the Supreme Court now, having taken up the case, will follow the unanimous bipartisan ruling coming out of the D.C. Circuit and will find that there is no such immunity built in the Constitution. On the contrary, it's totally antithetical to the idea that nobody is above the law and the president's job is to take care that laws are faithfully executed, not to violate the laws by doing things like ...
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assassinating his political opponents, which his lawyers hypothesized he could do.
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Yes. I mean, the Supreme Court could take it in several different directions here. I mean, it could do just what the D.C. Circuit said, which is that the claim of immunity is ludicrous and totally opposite our constitutional design. Or it could say, well, in certain cases, you might have it. In other cases, you wouldn't. They might say it's clearly not available in pursuance of a criminal design. They might be seeking further fact-finding on those questions and further rulings by the D.C. Circuit, which, of course, would slow the whole thing down.
So the best scenario would be one simply saying what the D.C. Circuit said, which is President Trump is now citizen Trump. And you might have some temporary civil immunity for being dragged into court on particular things to accommodate your schedule as president. But once you're out, you don't have immunity for actual criminal conduct that took place while you were in office, totally outside the scope of your duty.
But look, we saw the Supreme Court act quickly in Bush versus Gore. When they want to move, they can move and they can make things happen in a matter of days. And so I would like to see some Bush v. Gore- style speed here to get to their ruling so we can actually see the justice go forth in that ...Trump
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Well, there is that problem and we've seen this court follow Trump's bidding in dismantling Roe v. Wade in a half-century of privacy jurisprudence in order to dismantle abortion rights.
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for the election. Everybody needs to be vigilant.
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