Trump Immunity Hearing Concludes, It Didn’t Go Well

CNN Politics reports:

Judge Florence Pan challenged Trump lawyer John Sauer over the importance of granting Trump immunity over “other public interests,” saying that the former president’s arguments are “not fully aligned with the institutional interests of the executive branch.”

Judges are supposed to “conduct a balancing test,” Pan said, “where we balance the need for the asserted immunity versus other public interests. I see you as trying to represent a need for the executive to have this immunity to facilitate executive functions — the ability to act without hesitation, to be fearless to make decisions without being inhibited by the fear of prosecution.”

But, Pan said, there are other “countervailing” interests. Pan said that under the Article Two of the Constitution, “there is an interest of the executive branch as an institution — to have constitutional executive power vested in a newly elected president.”

Read the full article. The hearing has concluded but you can play back the audio below.

Pan now saying that if Sauer’s impeachment first argument is wrong, he loses.

Pearce “That is wrong for textual, historical, and a host of practical reasons.”

If a President assassinates and sells pardons and isn’t impeached, there is no accountability.

— emptywheel (@emptywheel) January 9, 2024

Again, I can’t WAIT for the reports of how Trump is taking this — his attorney arguing that Biden can assassinate him.

— emptywheel (@emptywheel) January 9, 2024

Pan: So I just want to confirm. If President Trump HAD BEEN convicted, then this prosecution would be entirely proper.

Sauer: For the same or similar conduct. There would be many other issues with this prosecution.

Pan has so little patience for men who filibuster her.

— emptywheel (@emptywheel) January 9, 2024