There is a possibility they may see some opportunity for some immunity for some president ial decisions. If they decide it that way, it may have to go back down to the District Court which could cause further delay. I appreciate you not being sidetracked by somebody who apparently wants to scream louder than anybody else. Catherine, the lower courts have been unanimous that trump cannot claim immunity. Does that tell you something . I cant imagine theyre going to say a former president has absolute immunity for criminal acts. What will be a win for donald trump is if theyre saying were sending it back to judge chutkan to determine which, if any he would have immunity for and which he would not. Thats a win because that would delay the trial, which is already delayed. So what of course obviously jack smith and Special Counsel is hoping for, a majority of the court will just say, no, absolute immunity from Criminal Prosecution for a former president and clearly jack smith would say this
Check abuses of power especially the use of official power for private gain. Here the Executive Branch is enforcing congressional statutes and seeking accountability for petitioners alleged misuse of official power to subvert democracy. That is a compelling public interest. In response, petitioner raises concerns about potential abuses. But established legal safeguards provide layers of protections with the Article Iii Courts providing the ultimate check. The existing system is a carefully balanced framework. It protects the president but not at the high constitutional cost of blanket criminal immunity. That has been the understanding of every president from the framing through watergate and up to today. This court should preserve it. I welcome the courts questions. Does the president have immunity or are you saying there is no immunity even for official acts . Yes, justice thomas. But i think it is important to put in perspective the position that we are offering the court today. The
To have said all i need you to do is to find me 11,000 votes unchanged. I think if you look at that context it is pretty clear that petitioner is acting in the capacity of office seeker, not as president i am focus on the legal test. I am not hearing any objections to it. Other than i think the d. C. Circuit place more Content Consideration off limit then i went. I want to understand on the court immunity, or whatever word we use, it seems to me that we are narrowing the ground of dispute here considerably. Do we look at motives . The president s motives for his actions . For example, he has lots of power as weve discussed, but he might use them to enhance his election in his personal interest. It is not a relevant consideration when we look at core powers . I think of this more as looking at the objectives of the activity as opposed to the subjective motives in the sense that you are i think there is concern about seeing a electoral motive to be reelected as such. Every firstterm pres
One is first of all, to some degree this has already been a victory for donald trump because this has delayed the start of the trial by jack smith and as a result has put him in the middle of a political campaign. We have a highly divisive electorate, highly divided with republicans on one side, democrats on the other cheering for their respective squads and as a result, it has energized president trumps base. The campaign reported that they had raised nearly 6 million over a fiveday period leading up to this weeks event. There has already been a victory for him in this. My suspicion is the Biden White House is saying we want him to be held to some level of responsibility for actions that he took while in office but not as the president of the United States. But on the other hand he also like the fact that they are out there able to campaign whether as an explicitly political candidate or campaign as the president in his official capacity and talk about the things they want to talk abo
Content, its clear that petitioner is acting in the capacity as office seeker, not as president. We would look at that content. Okay. The test im focused on the legal test. Im not hearing any objections to it. Other than, i think that the d. C. Circuit placed more Content Consideration off limits than i would. All right. I wanted to understand, on the Core Immunity or whatever word we use, that it seems to me we are narrowing the ground of dispute here considerably, do we look at motives, the president s motives for his actions . For example, he has more power as we discussed, but he might use them to enhance his election, his personal interests. Is that a relevant consideration when were looking at core powers . I am thinking of this more as looking at the objective of the activity as opposed to the subjective motive in the sense that your honor is talking about. I think theres a lot of concern about saying an electoral motive to be reelected. Right. Every firstterm president everythi