CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins laughed in Trump attorney Will Scharf’s face during a stunning exchange about former President Donald Trump’s claim of presidential immunity extending to killings and military coups.
Trump attorney John Sauer — the attorney who argued at an appeals court hearing that a president could order Seal Team Six to assassinate a political rival and not face prosecution unless he were impeached and convicted first — argued that same appeal before the Supreme Court on Thursday.
At that hearing, Sauer tripled down by arguing ordering the assassination of rivals “could well be” covered by presidential immunity, as could ordering a military coup.
Scharf was a guest on Thursday night’s edition of CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins, during which Collins pressed him on those arguments, and busted out laughing at Scharf’s “brazen argument”:
COLLINS: Well, and the Supreme Court, and the justices did seem, the conservative ones at least, skeptical of that.
But I have to ask you about something else, because when one of the justices asked today, if the President ordered a military coup, if that would be considered an official act? Your team, John Sauer, argued, quote, “It would depend on the circumstances, whether it was an official act.”
What are the circumstances where ordering a military coup is an official act of the presidency?
SCHARF: Well, again, when you’re talking about official acts, you don’t look to intent, you don’t look to purpose. You look to their underlying character. So, if that were — if that sort of situation were to unfold, using the official powers of the president, you could see there being an aspect of officialness to that.
I would say, though, that our constitutional system provides powerful structural checks against exactly those sorts of scenarios, which have safeguarded our republic throughout American history. So the idea that– COLLINS: OK. But that’s the argument people make, and also we never had a moment, where a sitting President tried to overturn a legitimate election until now.
SCHARF: Again, I would — I would fight your characterization of what happened in 2020.
But all of this parade of hypotheticals that some of the justices today, that our opponents have put forward, whether it’s the coups, whether it’s SEAL Team Six assassinating political rivals, it’s worth noting that the structural checks in place, in our Constitution, not including criminal prosecution of former presidents, have served to safeguard us from exactly those sorts of scenarios, throughout American history.
And it’s actually our parade of horribles, this idea of political prosecutions, crippling presidents, that’s what we’re seeing play out in America today.
COLLINS: Well, I would disagree with that characterization. I know that you refer to them as the Biden investigations. Obviously, President Biden’s not involved in these.
But you just said that they’re hypotheticals. They’re actually not. Alyssa Farah Griffin, who was a comms director in the White House tweeted this, and said that there was a moment, where she personally witnessed Donald Trump suggesting that whoever leaked that he went to the bunker, during the George Floyd protests, at the White House, should be executed.
So, it’s actually not really that far-fetched–
(CROSSTALK)
SCHARF: Well but they — but they obviously weren’t executed.
COLLINS: But does — is that — does the person have to be executed for it to be brought to bear?
SCHARF: I think hyperbole has a place in almost any office. But I’d come back to–
COLLINS: You think it’s just hyperbole?
SCHARF: I — no–
COLLINS: I mean, you’re making a pretty brazen argument that–
SCHARF: No–
COLLINS: –military coups could potentially be official acts that that well the person wasn’t executed, so it doesn’t matter.
SCHARF: But just because a military coup, or any of these sort of parade of horribles, could constitute an official act doesn’t mean that they’re right, doesn’t mean that they would be allowed under our constitutional system, and doesn’t mean that we’re in any way shape or form justifying that.
What we’re talking about here, though, is the scope of immunity, that presidents need to be able to rely on, to discharge their core Article II responsibilities as president.