If breaking news tonight, a judge in Illinois has disqualified
former President Trump from appearing on the states Republican primary
ballot.
Cook County Judge Tracy Porter cited the 14th Amendments Insurrection
Clause in her ruling
ordering the States Election Board to remove Donald Trump based
on his actions on January 6th.
Illinois is now the third state to disqualify Trump from
2024 primary ballots. The others are Maine and Colorado.
As of right now, though,
all three of these disqualifications are on hold pending a
Supreme Court decision that could come down any day.
Judge Porter acknowledged as much in her ruling tonight,
writing that she knew her decision could not be the
ultimate outcome.
Now, whenever the Court rules on this issue,
it is sure to be considered in light of tonight's
news that the court will now take up the present
question of presidential immunity in Jack Smith's federal election interference
case. Joining me now to discuss all this is Mary
McCord,
former senior DOJ official for the National Security Division and
an MSNBC legal analyst.
Mary, thanks for joining me tonight.
Some breaking news on all fronts.
Let me first just get your thoughts on the immunity
question and the degree to which the the fact that
the court is already mulling over the 14th Amendment case
is at all a factor in the decision tonight on
immunity.
I know there have been people that have said ever
since the court decided,
you know, to take up the 14th Amendment Section 3
question and people listen to the arguments.
And I think most of us who listened to him
felt like the court is
not prepared. There are not 5 justices prepared to bar
Donald Trump from the ballot.
They're concerned about a state having the ability to bar
a presidential candidate from about a ballot.
I think I know a lot of people said,
well, maybe they'll sort of balance that against ruling
either affirming the DC District in the in the
immunity case or just not taking it up at all.
You know, I don't. I think you know in the
subconscious of the justices that those kind of balancing things
out may exist.
But I think they would very much deny that they
do any type of horse training like that or that
one case is related to the other in that way
when the cases aren't technically related.
On on legal issues. I do think it's interesting today
to just think about the juxtaposition of this ruling out
of Illinois
with the decision to take up the question presented by
the Supreme Court.
So the question percent is the question that the Supreme
Court has limited their review to is whether a former
president enjoys immunity from criminal prosecutions for things that were
within his official acts as president.
So that we typically think of that from based on
the law that applies to immunity and civil cases,
things that are within your the outer perimeter of a
president's official acts may receive immunity,
but that questions never been asked for criminal cases.
So when you think about what are a
president's official acts, and on the same day as this
as this decision to take up this case,
we have a court in Chicago or in Illinois like
courts in other places who have said Donald Trump engaged
in insurrection.
Just thinking about engaging in insurrection,
the very thing that his criminal prosecution the in Washington
DC is based on engaging in this entire scheme that
led to insurrection.
It's hard to even conceive
of that scheme as being within a former president's official
acts.
So the the Supreme Court could have handled this much
differently and said we don't have to
address questions about, you know,
in the in the generic space about whether a president
could ever be immune for prosecution for things within the
outer perimeter of his official acts.
Because here, this case in front of us is about
a multifaceted conspiracy that led to an insurrection,
an attempt, an effort to overturn the votes of the
American people,
and whatever else you might say about official acts,
that is not a president's official act.
Yeah, it just seems like the court has been handed
a lot of data points,
if not just very strong rulings,
suggesting here's a person who fomented insurrection.
You know, here's a person who has no claim to
presidential immunity according to the appellate court system.
I mean, does it surprise you that they even feel
the need to weigh in on this and that there
was no noted dissent in the ruling today?
You don't normally have a dissent from a grant of
cert.
You would have dissent sometimes from denials of cert.
Or you might have statements that sort of explain why
assert was denied.
So it would be unusual in the grant of assert.
I mean a justice who is opposed
to cert. You know there's a good chance that justice
will ultimately be opposed to the the ruling of the
other members and can issue a dissent at that point.
So I'm not surprised about that.
I am surprised that it took almost two full weeks
for them to decide to take this case.
I can't imagine why they didn't couldn't have known
immediately justice by Justice whether they thought that the case
was important enough to take.
You know, and I've heard others say,
and I don't disagree with this,
this could have been an effort by some of the
justices to actually convince others not to take the case.
And maybe that's why it took this amount of time.
They could have been also trying to hammer
out what the actual question would be that they decided
to take.
But still almost two weeks
is surprising to me. And I think that's why a
lot of us thought they would deny cert.
In terms of my surprise about the justices,
I think there's at least
at least two who who maybe want to side with
the former president on this or at least don't want
to see him go to trial before the election,
which is different than necessarily siding with them.
But I think that you know most of the justices
ultimately I think will calm down on the same side
that the DC Circuit did and and determined that in
on these facts if they reach this,
if they don't send it back to Judge Chuck in
to determine whether this was within the scope of his
official acts or not.
But if they actually look at this,
the facts of this case
and and and address whether on a on a case
with these backs that could possibly be immune from criminal
prosecution,
I think the answer will be no from a majority
of the justices.
You sure would hope so.
I know this is going to be the subject of
an emergency episode of your podcast with Andrew Weitzman prosecuting
Donald Trump.
And I will be listening.
Mary McCord, thanks so much for your time tonight.