in february, of 2021, joe biden had been president for less than a month. the united states senate was still in the middle of impeaching the previous president for stoking insurrection. the house impeachment managers, all of them democrats, were making the case that even though trump was no longer president, he had to be impeached because otherwise future presidents would be free to commit any crime or misdemeanor as long as they did so right before leaving office. to rebut that, trump s lawyers offered this counter argument. if my colleague on this side of the chamber actually think that president trump committed a criminal offense, and let s understand, a high crime is a felony and misdemeanor is a misdemeanor. the words haven t changed that much overtime. after he s out of office, you go and arrest him. so there is no opportunity where the president of the united states can run rampant in january at the end of his term and just go away scot-free. the department of just
the guns, kit is greater. think about those kids practicing the speeches at home, heartbreaking pleas for change from what is now known as the lockdown generation takes us off the air tonight. and on that note, i wish you all a very good and safe night. for all of our colleagues across the networks of nbc news, thank you for staying up late, see you at the end of tomorrow. the end of tomorrow the united states senate was still in the middle of impeaching the previous president for stoking insurrection. the house impeachment managers, all of them democrats, were making the case that even though trump was no longer president, he had to be impeached because otherwise future presidents would be free to commit any crime or misdemeanor as long as they did so right before leaving office. to rebut that, trump s lawyers offered this counter argument. if my colleague on this side of the chamber actually think that president trump committed a criminal offense, and let s understand
argued in court today that trump could send seal team six to kill a political opponent and absent unofficial impeachment conviction there s nothing the u.s. criminal justice system could do about any of that. it is a shocking position to take. especially when you consider the number of times trump has toyed with the idea of killing his political rivals. accusing general mark milley of treason. punishable by death. encouraging a mob as it rallied to hang vice president mike pence. announcing that he could shoot someone, anyone, on fifth avenue. so, history happened here in this courtroom. maybe some prognostication to. president trump was in the courtroom today, just feet away from special counsel jack smith. trump was surrounded by his lawyers and buy his body men, walt nauta, who is of course trump s codefendant in the mar-a-lago documents case. by all accounts, the judges here appeared more receptive to
encouraging a mob as it rallied to hang vice president mike pence. announcing that he could shoot someone, anyone, on fifth avenue. so, history happened here in this courtroom. maybe some prognostication to. president trump was in the courtroom today, just feet away from special counsel jack smith. trump was surrounded by his lawyers and buy his body men, walt nauta, who is of course trump s codefendant in the mar-a-lago documents case. by all accounts, the judges here appeared more receptive to the prosecutions arguments, but trump and his lawyers may not really have been there to convince the judges anyway. for them, the point may have been the hearing itself. delaying trump s criminal trial, even if it meant explaining the hypothetical immunity and sending commandoes to assassinate your political rivals. joining me now is former u.s. attorney and senior fbi official chuck rosenberg. also with me is former senior adviser to president obama and co-host of pod save america,
special counsel, in fact, to indict him, by saying all of these things and claiming that it s that they re his. but i think the other point politically is, as we ve all been discussing this evening, how this is going to play out over the next year. when could this come to trial? and while we have seen that donald trump politically has seen teflon thus far, we re just beginning to hear about these charges. we re just beginning to find out about the evidence. maybe some of these, you know, his base is going to stick with him forever no matter what, if he goes out and shoots someone, as he said, on fifth avenue. but i think that there are republicans out there who really want to know what is in this evidence. and they re not convinced yet that it won t hurt him.