During oral arguments in which a lot of Supreme Court justices shared a common sense with previous president Donald Trump’s lawyers ‘ claims that a leader does have some degree of resistance that lasts beyond the term of office, Justice Samuel Alito and a government lawyer sparred on Thursday.
Alito pressed Michael Dreeben, the attorney for the government, about the government’s say that former presidents lack no form of immunity. In arguing against Trump’s say that he is free from trial on charges of trying to reverse the effects of the 2020 election, Drew represented Special Counsel Jack Smith’s staff.
According to Alito, Dreeben asserts that while a former president does not have resistance, he does so under the condition that rules that apply to everyone may be interpreted differently in some circumstances.
Dreeben agreed, attributing it to ,” the basic process that judges read statutes to prevent serious legal questions. And the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel ( OLC ) has done this for a long time.
Alito questioned Dreeben’s claim that courts may prevent prosecuting former presidents in any way, as well as whether or not that safety was actually a safety:
All straight. This is more, in my opinion, than just a terminological streit; it involves whether the former president receives some form of exclusive safety or resistance because of this distinction, which I’m sure you are well aware of.
If it’s just a form of particular security, in other words, rules may be interpreted differently as applied to a previous president, then that is something that has to be litigated at test. The former president can make a movement to ignore and properly identify OLC ideas, and the district judge may say: Well, that’s okay, I’m not bound by OLC and I interpret it differently, so let’s go to trial.
The previous president may not be able to engage in any other activities that the former president may prefer to do after the test. The result is finally reliant on the judge, the instructions to the judge, and how the jury pronounces a verdict, and it must then be appealed.
So the security is considerably diluted if you take the form , — if it takes the form that you have proposed. Then why is that better?
” It’s better because it’s more healthy”, Dreeben answered.
Alito likewise made a comment about” the old saw about indicting a sausage burger,” which conveyed that some city prosecutors have such a powerful impact on grand juries that they could persuade them to prosecute a ham sandwich.
The situation is , Trump v. United States, No. 23- 939 in the Supreme Court of the United States.
Bradley Jaye is a Breitbart News editor on Capitol Hill. Following him on X/Twitter at , @BradleyAJaye.
