Former President Donald Trump's legal team made a massive admission to the Supreme Court during oral argument about presidential immunity — acknowledging to Justice Amy Coney Barrett that at least some of the acts committed by the former president in the plot to overturn the election, like speaking to private attorneys about how to block elector certification, were not official acts.
That could play a massive role in the justices' decision, former Supreme Court law clerk Joshua Matz told CNN's Jake Tapper.
"What do you make of that concession?" said Tapper. "It just sounds like oh, he is granting that this stuff isn't covered by immunity. Therefore, at least some of this stuff can go forward in court ... that's what it sounded like to me, this non-lawyer."
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"I don't think you're wrong about it," said Matz. "I thought it was an extraordinarily important concession, and I thought it was telling that Justice Barrett was the conservative justice who was by far the most skeptical of Donald Trump's position."
"I think those concessions open up a really significant question," Matz continued. "Everybody seems to agree that the indictment against Trump alleges a number of acts that were private in the sense that there's no real claim that they're covered by absolute immunity. And Justice Barrett floated this compromise, if you want to call it that at the argument where she said, well, look, what what if you just drop all of the stuff that's official or that maybe official. Could you just go to trial with the acts that everybody agrees are private? And that seems to be a way of potentially getting around some of the big issues here. You know, that, in turn, opens up this big debate about even if they did that, could all of the official acts, which provide essential context and color for the entire conspiracy that's alleged, could those be brought in as evidence? And the Justice Department said yes. And Trump said no."
"If the Supreme Court wants to think about a quick path for this case to move forward, and one that avoids some of the really thorny questions about what acts are official and what acts aren't, it could potentially remand for consideration, at least, of an expedited trial focused on the private acts. Although I think it would really need to give some guidance there about whether the non-private acts can still be heard by the jury as evidence, even if they can't be a separate basis from liability."
Watch the video below or at the link.
Joshua Matz on presidential immunity arguments www.youtube.com
