Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD) said Tuesday on CNN’s “The Situation Room” that former President Donald Trump’s legal argument of presidential immunity was “utterly ludicrous” because it would lead to impeached president’s murdering senators.
Raskin said, “The presentation in the D.C. Circuit Court of appeals before the three-judge panel was astounding. Donald Trump and his lawyers essentially asserted that the president has the right to assassinate people, to kill people without any prospect of prosecution unless they’re first impeached by the House and convicted in the Senate.”
He continued, “And of course, as a member of Congress, my first thought was, well, then if the president is going to order out for the assassination of his political rivals, and say there’s a narrow margin in the Senate of a two or three vote in the opposition party, what’s to keep him from murdering members of the Senate to make sure that he doesn’t get convicted there in order to deny a two-thirds majority?”
Raskin added, “He could kill them and then he can’t be impeached or convicted because he’s murdered his opposition and can’t be prosecuted for it because he hasn’t been impeached or convicted. Now, of course, Trump’s argument is utterly ludicrous. Nobody’s ever even attempted such an absurd argument in American history. But it shows you how outlandish and deranged Donald Trump’s worldview is at this point. And it’s very dangerous because all of it revolves around political violence.”
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