president s personal lawyer, rudy giuliani, in an interview last night to the huffington post and let me read you the quote. he said he, t president, shot james comey, he would be im peech peached e naext day. he was saying, even if the president shot someone e chose jam comey who we know the president doesn t have much care for he still couldn t be prosecuted. any legal basis in that? well poppy, as you know, there are conflicting legal analyses, one by the j department and one by ken starr back w he was the independent counsel investigating bill clinton about whether a sitting president can or cannot be diltdilt indicted. it s a open questi. but we need to step back. the purpose of these letters that we learned about over the weekend was basically the president s legal team telling the special counsel we don t have to comply with youigation, meet with you on your terms because we have all of these greater powers.
a lot of the facts have been convenientlytted to make the story work, i think partly because they re frustrated that they got all these serious allegations against the current occupant of the oval office and his voters don t seem to care. i think i did the right thing. i defended the constitution. you think this president s been given a pass with regards to the women who have come forward and accused him of sexual misconduct? no. but it hasn t gotten anything like the coverage that you would expect. he s sitting there with james patterson, the author, promoting their new novel together. with me earl lewis, cnn political commentator, cnn contributor and the co-author of a new book, the great revolt. nice to have you here. is the former president right that the coverage has not been as much as clearly he thinks it should be about president trump on this issue? well, with president trump we have entered sort of a
unconstitutional, that he has the right to pardon himself and by the way bob mueller even existing or having this probe is unconstitution unconstitutional. is this a line, a bridge too far for republicans in congress? they are all going to have to answer. or is t just another day? it s just another day because the president has been trying to obstruct, undermine, interfere with and cause confusion about this investigation from literally the day that it started. i don t think he s called it unkongs tu kongconstitutional b he s going to keep ratcheting it up until somebody makes it stop. there are trump supporters who are perfectly willing to say, let s let him say whatever he wants, let him redefine law, redefine the constitution, say whatever kind of crazy thing he wants about whether or not he can pardon himself and we ll just let the institutions take care of it somewhere down the road. no, there is no somewhere down the road. the institutions have to take effect now. that incl
congress for pursuing impeachment proceedings. whether he ight or not, poppy, that s the point at which the constitution creates a clear mechanism presid removal. kellyanne conway just said to our kaitlyn collins, you guys, the media likes to bring up these hypotheticals when kaitly president think he s above the law. the reason the conversation started again over the weekend is because it is mentioned by e president s lawyers in that 20-page letter to mueller s team. they bring it up. then giuliani is talking about it and asked about it over and over again yesterday. so i m confounded that kellyanne conway thinks this is hypotheticals when their team brought it up. i want you both to listen to a man who s a big supporter of president trump, former new jersey governor chris christie, also a prosecutor. here s what he said which he was asked yesterday about obstruction and whether the president is above the law. it s an outrageous claim.
he could get in trouble for shooting james comey. quite an unusual comment for rudy giuliani to make, but that came on the same day as he was making these arguments about the president s sweeping constitutional powers and what the president s legal team sees this as. poppy, this is something we have long suspected is the thinking of the president and his legal team but here we are now hearing it just out in plain language from the president himself. and you asked kellyanne conway, the adviser and senior counsellor to the president, about this point blank, why does the president think he s above the law. what did she tell you? reporter: we saw her minutes after the president made this stunning state twier and i asked her w doe the president believe that he is above the law and he s the chief law enforcement agency in the united states. she said, excuse me, she said that the president she asked why he would need to pardon himself if he hasn t done anything wrong.