Conservative judge with record of knowing what's next predicts Trump Supreme Court verdict
Former Judge J. Michael Luttig has been right on just about everything he predicted coming from the Supreme Court so far, MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace said. So, she wanted to know his predictions for the decision over Donald Trump's claim of presidential immunity.
Trump's 2020 election case went before the Supreme Court last week after he appealed it from the lower court. Trump claimed that due to presidential immunity, anything he did while in office could not be prosecuted.
Luttig began by saying that no president has attempted to claim immunity, much less the kind Trump is suggesting, at any time in 250 years of American jurisprudence.
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While he called the legal case "preposterous," Luttig explained that it is clear observers thought some Supreme Court members were "tempted by the question presented. Namely, is it possible that [he] has absolute immunity for the specific offenses that he committed to attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election."
The retired judge said that listening to the analysis from "court watchers that the Court will remand the case to the trial court for determination."
That means that the Supreme Court will rule that the lower court must decide which of Trump's decisions were "official" acts as president and which were personal ones. The lower court has already dismissed Trump's demand for immunity, which is why the appeal has gone all the way to the top.
"If I receive that remand, I wouldn't have a clue where even to begin in distinguishing between these acts, which were taken in an official capacity, and which were taken in the former president's private or personal capacity," Luttig confessed.
Wallace asked Luttig why it seemed like Justice Samuel Alito or Justice Brett Kavanaugh were "trying so hard to find absolute immunity for Donald Trump?"
Luttig explained that he would never suggest they were trying to find immunity for Trump.
"But I would say this as to the argument," he continued. "The argument that was being pressed by the justices, not the justices themselves, the argument assumed that the prosecution of the former president today is politically corrupt, and the argument seeks a rule that would prevent such politically corrupt prosecutions by former presidents of their predecessors."
He confessed he was "deeply concerned" that it turned to that line of questioning, but continued to distinguish the individual justices from the Court.
"The entire premise of that argument is that all future presidents will act in bad faith against the interests of the United States of America in order to corruptly prosecute their predecessors for any possible acts committed by those predecessors that they could characterize as criminal," Luttig said.
He called it "fundamentally at odds with the American ideal, the American idea, and the faith and confidence that the American people place in their presidents of the United States."
It's simply "not an argument," Luttig explained, further calling it a "fallacious argument with fallacious premises."
Wallace went on to ask how the justices seemed so "immune to the facts of Jan. 6" and the facts of the 2020 election brought.
Luttig confessed he didn't know. The only thing he could think is that courts only decide what is in front of them, "and nothing else."
If Luttig's analysis is correct, Trump's presiding judge, Tanya Chutkan, said that she has about 81 days of pre-trial preparation, motions, arguments, and rulings to make in the case.
See the interview in the videos below or at the link here.
Part 1:
- YouTube www.youtube.com
Part 2:
Judge J. Michael Luttig Part 2 www.youtube.com