Eight years in the past, simply earlier than the Iowa caucuses, Donald J. Trump crowed about his invulnerability.
“I may stand in the course of Fifth Avenue and shoot someone, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK?” he mentioned. “It’s, like, unimaginable.”
On Tuesday, at a federal appeals courtroom argument held the week earlier than this 12 months’s caucuses, a lawyer for Mr. Trump mentioned that the Structure principally states the identical factor.
It took a couple of questions from Decide Florence Y. Pan to pin down the lawyer, D. John Sauer. However in the long run he made the jaw-dropping declare that former presidents are completely immune from prosecution even for murders they ordered whereas in workplace.
“I requested you a yes-or-no query,” Decide Pan mentioned. “May a president who ordered SEAL Group 6 to assassinate a political rival, who was not impeached, would he be topic to legal prosecution?”
Mr. Sauer mentioned his reply was a “certified sure,” by which he meant no. He defined that prosecution would solely be permitted if the president have been first impeached by the Home and convicted by the Senate.
Impeachments of presidents are uncommon: There have been 4 within the historical past of the Republic, two of them of Mr. Trump. The variety of convictions, which require a two-thirds majority of the Senate: zero.
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