In order to function properly, a president must have total immunity…
Video transcript
The best argument for the president or the former president's immunity claim Is that even though the Supreme Court has not grappled with this precise issue that is can a president be criminally? prosecuted for official acts within the ambit of his executive Responsibilities the court has grappled with an analogous situation involving President Nixon in the early 1980s which involved a civil lawsuit and I think the the strong argument should be that The same rationale that the court had for saying the president needed to be spared from civil liability applies especially nowadays when we have very politicized prosecutions to the criminal ambit as well Because what you don't want to have is a president when he's making the most important decisions that have to be made for the national security of the United States to be worrying about whether he's at when he's out of power whether it's civil lawsuits or criminal indictments brought by Justice departments from the opposition party that has policy disagreements You don't want the president worrying about future liability while he's trying to make the best decision for the country Sure So one of the distinctions that we heard in the back and forth here was the question about the actual issue at hand for which the president is seeking immunity and they talked about President Obama using drones and drone strikes that killed civilians in terms of whether or not a president is immune from any prosecution with regard to that there's another issue with regard to George W. Bush in the actions of president and immunity from Committing murder for example in these cases because he's carrying out national security issues But we heard some of their line of questioning leaning towards I'm gonna pause wait one second. Let's
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