The Appeals Court hearing on Donald Trumps Immunity Hearing has wrapped up. The threejudge appellant panel facing this big question can the former president be held criminally responsible for actions that he took while in office to overturn the 2020 election loss. We heard a remarkable argument from trumps team who heard the argument that prosecuting a former president would open up a pandoras box as john sauer said that working in the capacity as alleged in the indictment by jack smith, the Special Counsels office pushing back on that. This notion that we are all of the sudden going to be seeing a floodgate, i think that, again, the careful investigations in the clinton era didnt result in any charges. The fact that this investigation did doesnt reflect that we are going to see a sea change of vindictive titfortat prosecutions in the future. I think it reflects fundamentally unprecedented nature of the criminal charges here. Cnns evan perez joins us now. Evan, you were inside of that
welcome back to the weekend, everyone. we are beginning this hour with a late night court filing from donald trump s legal team. the filing argues that trump shouldn t be charged in the classified documents case because president biden was in charge and his case. this is true. i m going to quote from it. president biden will not be charged. president trump should not have been either. now, never mind that the special counsel made clear in his report that the two cases were wildly different. joining us now, january six investigator , also joining, former fbi general concert, andrew weizmann. he is the host of the msnbc podcast, prosecuting donald trump. greetings, everyone. you and i were on set to get there when the report broke. i do wonder if it was always inevitable that donald trump s lawyers were voting to cite this report as soon as it came out. also, talking about this specifically is a motion to compel discovery. i m curious why this becomes relevant and that ty
the appeals court hearing on donald trump s immunity hearing has wrapped up. the three-judge appellant panel facing this big question can the former president be held criminally responsible for actions that he took while in office to overturn the 2020 election loss. we heard a remarkable argument from trump s team who heard the argument that prosecuting a former president would open up a pandora s box as john sauer said that working in the capacity as alleged in the indictment by jack smith, the special counsel s office pushing back on that. this notion that we are all of the sudden going to be seeing a floodgate, i think that, again, the careful investigations in the clinton era didn t result in any charges. the fact that this investigation did doesn t reflect that we are going to see a sea change of vindictive tit-for-tat prosecutions in the future. i think it reflects fundamentally unprecedented nature of the criminal charges here. cnn s evan perez joins us now. ev
fewer than five hours out from the cnn republican presidential debate and nikki haley and ron desantis facing off five days before iowa voters set the race, is this a fight for second place? else on capitol hill when hunter biden shows up unexpectedly crashing a hearing holding him in contempt of congress. you are the epitome of white privilege, coming into the oversight committee and spitting in her face. we can hear from hunter biden. you should have the courtesy and don t act like nimrods. hunter biden abruptly walked out. a judge says not so fast on donald trump taking the stand. welcome to the lead, i am pamela brown, jake tapper is out, he will moderate the republican presidential debate with dana bash between ron desantis and nikki haley, the two candidates searching for a breakthrough that could position them to become the one and only viable challenger to donald trump who is the favorite to win his search straight republican nomination. nikki haley trails d
because the court of appeals heard a major concession, see what i did there, from the lawyer from a former president who has refused to concede that he lost the election, and he did lose that election. before today trump s lawyers were absolutely, what s the word, adamant, totally convinced that the president has absolute immunity from trump s conduct while of course he was in office. they wouldn t even budge on this point. well, first they wouldn t budge. right out of the gate with question from one of the judges in the federal court, they were forced to make a powerful concession, that of course there is not absolute immunity meaning, you can never charge a former president for action taken while in office, if it was criminal or otherwise? they could see that you can prosecute under certain circumstances. and they only admitted that after the judge gave them a whole string of hypotheticals, there s only one legitimate truthful answer could a president who ordered sealed