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
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
at this and say candidate, president, head of executive branch? let me give you this analysis. there have been other people who have raised similar claims. they said what i was doing in the run-up to january 6th was part of my official job. for example, mark meadows has made the same argument. it s basically the same test. meadows said, well, what i was doing as white house chief of staff, that was part of my job. rejected. jeffrey clark, same thing. part of my official federal job at doj, rejected. donald trump himself in a different case, he s being sued for over january 6th by police officers who were there at the scene. civil case. and this argument about whether donald trump is civilly immune was within the job of president, that went to this same court we just heard, different panel of judges but the court of appeals in d.c., and they rejected. they said, no, what you were doing was outside the scope of the presidency. it s not as clear cut as if there s a traffic accident as
knew the president needed to act immediately. they texted mr. meadows and he has turned over those texts. quote, mark, the president needs to tell people in the capitol to go home. this is hurting all of us. he is destroying his legacy laura ingraham wrote. please, get him on tv. destroying everything you have accomplished. quote, can he make a statement, ask people to leave the capitol? sean hannity urged. as the violence continued, one of the president s sons texted mr. meadows, quote, he s got to condemn this shit asap. the capitol police tweet is not enough. donald trump jr. texted.