Last week's presidential immunity ruling by the Leonard Leo appointed
Supreme Court conservative majority all but put a nail in
the coffin of the efforts to hold Donald Trump accountable
for
his many alleged crimes before November's election.
The federal election interference case won't be returned back to
DC Circuit Court Judge Tanya Chutkin until next month,
when the Supreme Court officially issues its judgment in the
immunity case.
At that point, Judge Chutkin would need to parse through
what parts of the indictment could still be charged against
Trump.
And that would likely require,
and that would likely require evidentiary hearings to be held.
That would be the last opportunity before the election for
Jack Smith to make public any of the damning evidence
against Trump,
including the possibility of having high profile officials like Trump's
former Vice President Mike Pence testify at the hearings.
The Guardian reports that Trump's team is already preparing to
fight to stop such hearings from occurring.
According to the Guardian, in the coming months,
Trump's lawyers are expected to argue that the judge can
decide whether the conduct is immune based on legal arguments
alone.
If prosecutors try to call Pence or his chief of
staff Mark Short,
to testify about meetings where Trump discussed stopping the January
6th certification,
Trump would try to block that testimony by asserting executive
privilege and having Pence assert the speech or Debate Clause
protection.
Joining me now is Melissa Murray,
NYU law professor, MSNBC legal analyst and Co host of
the Strict Scrutiny podcast.
Melissa, good to see you.
So what are the chances that
Trump's lawyers can once again delay this?
Because this hearing could be the only way the American
people could hear from Mike Pence.
Is it possible that they can stop it?
I don't know if it's possible to stop it,
but that's never been the goal.
The goal, joy, has always been to delay as long
as possible.
My co-author of the Trump indictments,
Andrew Weissman, has said on many an MSNBC program that
this particular evidentiary hearing might be the only opportunity for
the American public to have a full understanding of the
evidence against Donald Trump. Like by having this evidentiary hearing,
it might be the closest thing we can get to
a trial by jury.
And I think that's the last thing that Donald Trump
would like to see.
So here we have this move to get Judge Chuckin
to decide this on the papers,
to not hold any kind of hearing and to keep
this evidence out of the public domain.
How do we stop this case from going back to
the Supreme Court?
Because I feel like their best shot would be to
somehow appeal
her attempt to hold the evidentiary hearing and somehow get
it back into the hands of the pro insurrectionist majority
on the court.
Because if they did that,
we already know that whether it's John Roberts or Alito
or Thomas,
they'll shut it down.
So that's a really interesting question.
I mean, obviously, all roads do lead back to the
Supreme Court.
There would be a hearing before Judge Chuck in about
whether or not the hearing could happen.
That could be appealed on to the DC Circuit.
And then any decision from the DC Circuit could be
appealed to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court, however, does not have to take this.
And again, so many Americans are up in arms about
this immunity decision.
75% of Americans don't believe that the president should have
complete immunity from criminal prosecution.
And they worry that although the court has not given
the president complete immunity,
it is opened a quite wide door to the president
having immunity from criminal liability in the future,
and they are understandably upset about it.
And so I wonder if the court,
which has to rely on public opinion to some degree
for its own legitimacy,
might think twice about taking up this case and handing
another win to Donald Trump.
But the delay is really where all of the action
is.
I, I believe it is the,
the chances that they would take the case and protect
him again are
100%. I don't think they care at all.
I mean, this is my,
I don't think they care at all.
I think they've shown in the way that they write
and even the way they respond to the dissent,
John Robertson don't care. They want Trump back in and
they don't care what they have to do Real quickly
on the, the, the, the,
the case about him stealing classified documents that we know
that Aileen can is trying to help him out.
Is there some way that the concurrence written by Clarence
Thomas could give her a leg to stand on to
dismiss that case?
Oh, I think that concurrence is written entirely for an
audience of one,
and that one was Judge Cannon.
That concurrence by Justice Clarence Thomas,
which no one else on the court joined,
essentially raised questions about the constitutionality of the appointment of
the special counsel.
This was something that Judge Chuck,
that Judge Cannon had already questioned and had an open
hearing on in her courtroom just weeks before.
This only fuels that fire.
And so again, I think it was tailor made for
Judge Cannon.
Others may disagree, but I think it will certainly stoke
the flames of this particular argument.
If to just circle right back again to the the
Chuck in case if that hearing does happen,
who would you as a as a legal professional most
want to hear from?
Would it be Mike Pence?
Like, who would you most want to hear from in
that hearing?
Well, I think, again, it's the panoply of evidence that's
really going to be important here.
I'm not sure that anyone particular witness or anyone particular
piece of evidence is going to be determinative or dispositive,
but the entire tableau might be.
But I do think the evidence from former Vice President
Mike Pence about what happened on that day,
how he was pressured to delay the certification or to
reject the certification of the Electoral College would be really
important.
Whether that evidence could come out.
We've talked about all of the different legal theories.
Preventing it would be a problem.
Yeah. I'm with you on that.
I would love to hear from him.
It would be very interesting.
Melissa Murray, thank you very much.
Much appreciated.