lawyers who are arguing, making additional arguments such as the fact that it would violate the executive vesting clause of the constitution to provide criminal immunity for a former president who when president committed crimes in order to remain in office after his four-year term that the constitution vests in the president for four years and only four years, unless re-elected, that it would directly violate that. it s a powerful, powerful brief, and also makes arguments that if he can commit crimes like that, to stay in office, he could use the military to stay in office, right? which would violate criminal offenses and certainly could not have ever been what the founders anticipated. so i am optimistic on immunity. on the 14th amendment section 3 disqualification for having engaged in insurrection, it s interesting because right now, president trump, former president trump still has not
that continues to divide our country. i have already said that long ago. i think we have to move on as a country, and it s like florida, nixon, the divisions are just not in the country s interest. joining me now is jelani cobb, dean of the columbia journalism school and staff writer for the new yorker, and david jolly, msnbc political analyst and former republican congressman who is no longer affiliated with that party. thank you both for being here. so much to talk about, about nicky haley. i want to start with the pardon piece of it, though, david, because you know, the current president, joe biden, is an 80-year-old man, and donald trump s probably would be attorney general says he s going to prosecute him and throw him in prison. i wonder if nikki haley believes that applied to joe biden or you can t throw one specific 80-year-old man in prison. the hypocrisy is remarkable.
widespread fraud. in fact, his campaign paid not one but two companies to investigate the claims, but both came back to him with the same results. there is no evidence to support your claims. those two companies, berkeley and simm patical software systems were paid roughly a million dollars to investigate the baseless claims repeated by trump and his associates like rudy giuliani, some o whom are now his codefendants. ken block, owner of simpatic told the washington post in april, no substantive voter fraud was uncovered in my investigations looking for it, nor was i able to substantiate any cla of voter fraud. he sent his findings to the trump campaign on a rolling basis. today in a new opinion piece for usa today, block reiterated trump s claims are a lie and if voter fraud had impacted the 2020 election, it would have already been proven. joining me now is ken block, owner of simpatico software
its briefing. we already almost were fully briefed. argument is next monday, you know, it s going to move so fast, and in some ways i think the supreme court thought, let s see what they have to say. it also gives them an out. if they think the circuit rules correctly, they did this in trump v. thompson, the case about whether the house select committee could get the presidential records that the former president claimed executive privilege for. the d.c. circuit ruled that no, president trump, former president trump, you can claim executive privilege but we weigh that against various tests, and here it doesn t prevail. and the supreme court denied cert in that case. they did not take that case up. i think there s a chance it could stay out of the supreme court. if it goes to the supreme court, i think jack smith by far has the better of the arguments and he s supported by very substantial former republican administration officials going back five administrations, as well as other conse
legislation from congress before that decision can be made. the u.s. supreme court may also ask whether the procedures for deciding he engaged in insurrection were adequate. in colorado, there was a trial. in maine, the secretary of state decided on her own based on the january 6th report. so there s so many ways the supreme court could try to avoid this or not kick him off the ballot in some states but not others. but there s no easy way to avoid the question and in the end they re going to have to interpret the constitution. jamie raskin i think made a really strong argument, which is that if trump was, you know, 28 or 26 or couldn t be president because of the age limit, that is automatic. the secretary of state would make that decision because constitutionally, he couldn t be on it, but the constitution is very clear if you engage insurrection, you cannot run for office or hold office. there s a watchdog group called