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SCOTUS weighs monumental constitutional fight over Trump immunity claim
The Supreme Court waded cautiously Thursday in a landmark area of law it has never before encountered: whether former presidents have “absolute immunity” from criminal prosecution, stemming from the special counsel’s federal election interference case. In a special courtroom session lasting more than two and a half hours, the justices appeared to be looking for middle ground that might see at least some of Trump’s sweeping claims dismissed, while still allowing future presidents to be criminally exempt from clearly official executive functions — like their role as commander in chief. The official question the justices are confronting: “Whether, and if so, to what extent does a former president enjoy presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for conduct alleged to involve official acts during his tenure in office?” SUPREME COURT SHARPLY AT ODDS OVER EMERGENCY ROOM ABORTION ACCESS IN STATES’ RIGHTS CHALLENGE In riveting arguments, a partisan divide developed early on the nine-member bench, as it weighed whether and when executive official duties versus private conduct in office could be subject to prosecution. Both liberal and conservative justices focused on the broader implications for future presidents. “If the potential for criminal liability is taken off the table, wouldn’t there be a significant risk that future presidents would be emboldened to commit crimes with abandon while they’re in office?” asked Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. “If someone with those kinds of powers, the most powerful person in the world with the greatest amount of authority, could go into office knowing that there would be no potential full penalty for committing crimes, I’m trying to understand what the disincentive is from turning the Oval Office into, you know, the seat of criminal activity in this country.” Justice Samuel Alito asked, “If an incumbent who loses a very close, hotly contested election, knows that a real possibility after leaving office is not that the president is going to be able to go off into a peaceful retirement, but that the president may be criminally prosecuted by a bitter political opponent, will that not lead us into a cycle that destabilizes the functioning of our country as a democracy?” Justice Brett Kavanaugh summed up the stakes, however the court rules: “This will have huge implications for the presidency.” Trump was not in attendance at the argument but talked about the stakes when greeting supporters at a New York construction site. “A president has to have immunity,” he said Thursday morning. “If you don’t have immunity, you just have a ceremonial president, you won’t have a president.” The underlying factor is time — whether the court’s expedited ruling, expected in May or June, would allow any criminal trial to get underway before the November presidential election. Depending on the outcome, jury selection could begin by late summer or early fall, or the case could be delayed indefinitely or dismissed altogether. SUPREME COURT SHARPLY DIVIDED OVER ENFORCING MUNICIPAL HOMELESS CAMPING BAN The stakes could not be higher, for both the immediate political prospects and the long-term effect on the presidency itself and the rule of law. As the presumptive GOP nominee to retake the White House, Trump is betting that his broad constitutional assertions will lead to a legal reprieve from the court’s 6-3 conservative majority — with three of its members having been appointed to the bench by the defendant himself. Special Counsel Jack Smith has charged the former president with conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding; and conspiracy against rights. Those charges stemmed from Smith’s investigation into Trump’s alleged plotting to overturn the 2020 election results, including participation in a scheme to disrupt the electoral vote count leading to the subsequent January 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot. Smith and several of his deputies attended the arguments. Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges in August. SUPREME COURT AGREES TO REVIEW WHETHER TRUMP IMMUNE FROM PROSECUTION IN FEDERAL ELECTION INTERFERENCE CASE The lengthy courtroom arguments raised a series of hypotheticals to explore the “outer perimeter” of criminal executive liability. Several justices wondered whether a president could someday be prosecuted for ordering the assassination by his military of a political rival; ordering a nuclear weapons strike; or demanding a bribe for a political appointment. “If you expunge the official part from the indictment, that’s like a one-legged stool, right?” said Chief Justice John Roberts, suggesting official executive acts could be separated from partisan, unofficial acts. “I mean, giving somebody money isn’t bribery unless you get something in exchange. And if what you get in exchange is to become the ambassador of a particular country, that is official: the appointment that’s within the president’s prerogatives. The unofficial part: I’m going to get $1,000,000 for it.” Justice Elena Kagan asked whether the president could stage a coup to remain in office. When John Sauer, Trump’s attorney, hedged on an answer, Kagan replied, “That answer sounds to me as though, under my test, it’s an official act,” subject to post-office prosecution. “But that sure sounds bad, doesn’t it?” She added there was no immunity clause in the Constitution for a good reason. “Wasn’t the whole point that the president was not a monarch and the president was not supposed to be above the law?” Michael Dreeben, attorney for the Special Counsel’s office, defended the government’s position. “It’s baked into the Constitution that any president knows that they are exposed to potential criminal prosecution,” he said. “It’s common ground that all former presidents have known that they could be indicted and convicted. And Watergate cemented that understanding.” Sauer suggested only an impeachment and conviction in the Senate could lead to future criminal prosecution of an ex-president. “There are many other people who are subject to impeachment, including the nine sitting on this bench,” said Justice Amy Coney Barrett, pointing to her colleagues, “and I don’t think anyone has ever suggested that impeachment would have to be the gateway to criminal prosecution for any of the many other officers
Bragg ‘allowed political motivations’ to ‘infect’ prosecution of Trump, House Judiciary GOP says
EXCLUSIVE: The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office “allowed political motivations and animus to infect its prosecutorial discretion,” the House Judiciary Committee argued in a report Thursday, saying charges were brought against former President Trump employed a “dangerously low threshold” to prosecute “political opponents.” The GOP-led committee released a 300-page report Thursday, exclusively obtained by Fox News Digital, titled “An Anatomy of a Political Prosecution: The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office Vendetta Against President Donald J. Trump.” TRUMP SAYS NY JUDGE MERCHAN ‘THINKS HE IS ABOVE THE SUPREME COURT’ AFTER BARRING HIM FROM IMMUNITY ARGUMENTS The committee, led by Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, has been investigating the “unprecedented” multi-year investigation into Trump led by the Manhattan’s DA office since last year, when current DA Alvin Bragg indicted Trump. Bragg charged Trump with 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree related to alleged hush money payments made before the 2016 presidential election. Trump pleaded not guilty. His criminal trial is currently taking place in New York City. “The DANY has been investigating President Trump since at least 2018, searching for any legal theory on which to bring charges,” the report states. “These charges are normally misdemeanors subject to a two-year statute of limitations, but Bragg used a novel and untested legal theory—previously declined by federal prosecutors—to bootstrap the misdemeanor allegations as a felony, which extended the statute of limitations to five years, by alleging that records were falsified to conceal a second crime.” Prosecutors revealed during the criminal trial this week that the alleged “second crime” was a violation of a New York law called “conspiracy to promote or prevent election.” Prosecutors will try to prove that the alleged conspiracy was to conceal a conspiracy to unlawfully promote his candidacy. “The facts at the center of Bragg’s political prosecution have not changed since 2018 and no new witnesses emerged between then and the date on which Bragg filed the indictment,” the report states. “The Justice Department examined the facts in 2019 and chose not to prosecute the case.” But the report points out that even with the DOJ’s decision, Bragg “convened a new grand jury in January [2023] to evaluate the issue.” TRUMP TRIAL: FORMER PRESIDENT ‘INNOCENT,’ SAYS DEFENSE AS DA ALLEGES ‘CRIMINAL CONSPIRACY’ “Bragg ultimately settled on a novel legal theory untested anywhere in the country and one that federal authorities declined to pursue to resurrect the matter,” the report states. Republicans added that “the only intervening factor, it appears, was President Trump’s announcement that he would be a candidate for President in 2024.” The report states that Congress “has a specific and manifestly important interest in preventing politically-motivated prosecutions of current and former presidents by elected state and local prosecutors, particularly in jurisdictions—like New York County—where the prosecutor is popularly elected and trial-level judges lack life tenure.” Bragg’s decision to bring charges against Trump after he became a candidate for president “required the Committee to consider potential legislative reforms to insulate current and former Presidents from such politically motivated state and local prosecutions,” the report states. NY PROSECUTORS REVEAL ‘ANOTHER CRIME’ TRUMP ALLEGEDLY TRIED TO CONCEAL WITH FALSIFIED BUSINESS RECORDS Former Manhattan DA prosecutor Mark Pomerantz testified before the committee in a deposition as part of the investigation. Pomerantz declined to answer most questions, but told the committee that was largely due to the then-pending investigation into Trump. Pomerantz, a donor to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, previously worked on the Trump investigation with ex-prosecutor Carey Dunne under Bragg’s predecessor, former Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance. Both Pomerantz and Dunne resigned after Bragg took the helm and raised doubts about pursuing a case against Trump. After Pomerantz resigned, he wrote a tell-all book based on the investigation, which was still ongoing. The book seemingly made the case to charge Trump. The committee quoted Pomerantz’s book, which they said revealed “his animus, both personally and politically against Trump.” Pomerantz wrote in his book of his “enthusiasm to work on the investigation,” but said it “had nothing to do with [his] views about Trump’s politics.” However, he admitted that he was “not a fan” of Trump, and “had little regard” for him. TRUMP FACES MAXIMUM SENTENCE OF 136 YEARS IN PRISON FOR 34-COUNT INDICTMENT Chairman Jim Jordan told Fox News Digital on Thursday that Pomerantz “left retirement to pursue a passion project of prosecuting President Trump.” “He looked high and low for all the possible ways to take down the president. When nothing panned out, he left Alvin Bragg’s office in disgust and wrote a book for the purpose of bringing public pressure on Bragg to bring some charge–and it worked,” Jordan said. “The whole trial is entirely political and everyone knows it.” The committee said Bragg’s tenure as district attorney contributed to rising crime in New York City. “Against the backdrop of District Attorney Bragg’s decision to find any reason to prosecute President Trump are Bragg’s actions to institute pro-crime, anti-victim policies that resulted in an increase in violent crime and created a dangerous community for New York City residents.” Bragg issued an early memo directing assistant DAs to avoid prosecuting certain crimes, including trespassing and prostitution. The memo stated that armed robberies should not be prosecuted as felonies. Instead, the new DA directed armed robberies to be considered as misdemeanor larceny unless someone was shot during the robbery. Bragg also stated that his office would not seek prison sentences except for homicides and other particularly “heinous crimes” like domestic violence felonies, sex crimes, and public corruption. TRUMP FILES MOTION REQUESTING JUDGE IN HUSH MONEY TRIAL BE RECUSED AMID DAUGHTER’S DEMOCRAT-AFFILIATED WORK The committee said that Bragg’s indictment of Trump “opened a dangerous new possibility of politically motivated prosecutions or threatened prosecutions of political opponents, including presidents.” “This case establishes a dangerously low threshold for these investigations and prosecutions to commence,” the report states, adding that Bragg has “opened the door for future prosecutions of a former president–or current candidate–that would widely be perceived as politically motivated.” Committee Republicans said Bragg inspired
UT-Austin faculty criticizes response to pro-Palestine walkout as students plan new protest
UT-Austin President defended the response but faculty criticized the presence of armed state troopers. At least 57 people were arrested.
Federal judge rejects Trump request for new trial in E. Jean Carroll suit, says he must pay $83.3 million
A federal judge in New York rejected former President Trump’s appeal of the $83.3 million fine the jury awarded E. Jean Carroll after he denied allegations he raped her in the 1990s. The judge also denied his request for a new trial. A federal jury decided in January Trump must pay $18.3 million in compensatory damages, and $65 million in punitive damages. Trump and his attorneys filed a motion requesting a new trial in the case, arguing that the court limited his testimony during the trial and that statements he made about her allegations were meant to “defend his reputation, protect his family, and defend his Presidency.” TRUMP LEGAL TEAM FILES MOTION FOR NEW TRIAL IN E JEAN CARROLL CASE In their motion for a new trial, Trump’s lawyers argued that the court severely limited the former president’s testimony, which they say influenced the jury’s verdict. Trump’s lawyers said he made statements about Carroll in an effort to “defend his reputation, protect his family, and defend his Presidency.” Trump attorneys also filed a stay on the $83.3 million judgment. A federal jury in New York City decided last year that Trump was not liable for rape but was liable for sexual abuse and defamation. The former president was ordered to pay $5 million in that trial. Carroll, who alleged that Trump raped her at the Bergdorf Goodman department store across from Trump Tower in Manhattan sometime in 1996, was seeking $12 million. TRUMP ORDERED TO PAY MORE THAN $80 MILLION IN E. JEAN CARROLL DEFAMATION TRIAL Trump, the 2024 GOP front-runner, has repeatedly and vehemently denied the allegation. His denial resulted in Carroll slapping Trump with a defamation lawsuit, claiming his response caused harm to her reputation. The jury found Carroll was injured as a result of statements Trump made while in the White House in June 2019. The jury awarded Carroll $7.3 million in compensatory damages, other than the reputational repair program, and $11 million in damages for the reputational repair program. The jury found Trump’s statements were made to harm Carroll and awarded her $65 million in punitive damages. In total, the jury said Carroll should be paid $83.3 million. This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Shelter dogs would provide therapy for distressed border agents under new bipartisan push
Stray dogs living in shelters could be given a shot at a new life providing comfort to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers under a new bipartisan proposal. Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, introduced a bill this week to establish a pilot program allowing the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to adopt the animals from local shelters and train them to be therapy dogs for Border Patrol personnel. It would build on the existing Canine Support Program established by CBP early last year in the face of mounting concerns about agents’ mental health as they deal with the ongoing border crisis. “These men and women work long hours year-round and face enormous challenges head-on,” Gonzales said in a press release. “By improving access to canine therapy support, this legislation will give our law enforcement one more tool to improve mental health outcomes at CBP.” ‘SIGNIFICANT THREAT’ ICE TRACKS DOWN ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT CHARGED WITH CHILD SEX CRIME Rep. Lou Correa, D-Calif., one of the bill’s original co-sponsors, said the existing program “has shown promise to increase staff morale and allow them to better deliver on their promise to keep our homeland safe.” “This is a strong step in the right direction – not just for those serving, but the communities they serve, too,” he said. In addition to aiding border agents, the proposal could also potentially have a positive effect on the country’s animal shelters, which have struggled with overcrowding in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, and as a growing number of Americans struggle to make ends meet for themselves, let alone their pets. “By facilitating the adoption of therapy dogs from local shelters, we’re not only providing essential emotional support for our CBP workforce but also offering a loving home to shelter dogs,” said Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., another of the bill’s co-sponsors. CLICK HERE FOR MORE COVERAGE OF THE BORDER SECURITY CRISIS Concerns about the mental health of Border Patrol officers reached the national stage amid an alarming spike in the number of suicides the department has seen in recent years. House Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, another of the bill’s co-sponsors, spoke with Fox News Digital about the issue during a congressional delegation trip to the McAllen, Texas, sector of the U.S.-Mexico border earlier this year. “Every time I come down here, it gets worse; the lack of detention space, the human tragedy you see here; what the Border Patrol has to deal with every day, day in and day out, looking at these migrants that are pouring in; this sense of hopelessness, that it won’t stop,” the Texas Republican said in January. “Profoundly, I worry about the mental health of our Border Patrol. The suicide rate is going up. They don’t have the proper resources.” BORDER PATROL CHIEF SUGGESTS ‘JAIL TIME,’ TOUGHER ‘CONSEQUENCES’ TO STOP ILLEGAL US-MEXICO BORDER CROSSINGS Seventeen CBP agents died by suicide in 2022 alone, Chris Cabrera, vice president of the National Border Patrol Council, told Congress in March 2023. That’s the highest number since CBP began tracking it in 2007. There were 19,357 CPB agents on the job in 2022. Since then, the number of illegal border crossings has continued to climb to new highs, while CBP agents are struggling with replenishing a dwindling workforce.
Mexican illegal immigrant charged with sexually assaulting two young girls during home invasion
A Mexican illegal immigrant whose visa expired in 2021 is now charged with the sexual assault of two young girls in Michigan after allegedly breaking into their mobile home, authorities say. Miguel Hernandez-Ruiz was arraigned Friday on one count of home invasion and two counts of first-degree criminal sexual assault against a person under the age of 13. Officials said he is in jail with no bond and has an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainer placed on him. Ruiz is a Mexican national living in Sturgis, and came to the U.S. on a temporary work visa, officials told reporters at a press conference. But that visa expired in December 2021, and he remained in the U.S. illegally after that time. ‘POLITICAL THEATER’: LEAKED DOCUMENT EXPOSES FRUSTRATION INSIDE KEY GOVERNMENT SECURITY AGENCY He was arraigned in court on Friday and his next court date is set for April 30. During that arraignment, officials warned he was a flight risk. “This is so serious that we’ve got to make sure we protect St. Joseph County, and honestly any county in the United States because we can’t afford to have this person leave,” prosecutor David Marvin said during Hernandez-Ruiz’s arraignment, according to WWMT. Law enforcement were dispatched to the Sweet Lake Mobile Home Park on March 20 for the report of a home invasion. Deputies subsequently found that two girls under the age of 13 had been sexually assaulted. ‘SIGNIFICANT THREAT’ ICE TRACKS DOWN ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT CHARGED WITH CHILD SEX CRIME Surveillance footage showed a vehicle that was eventually located, but the suspect fled the area prior to being taken into custody. He ultimately fled the state. The sheriff’s office said they tracked him to Fort Wayne, Indiana, where he was eventually caught. “Thanks to the meticulous planning, execution, and collaboration between multiple law enforcement partners, a dangerous predator is in custody,” Undersheriff Jason Bingaman said in a statement. CLICK HERE FOR MORE COVERAGE OF THE BORDER SECURITY CRISIS An immigration detainer is lodged by ICE on a suspect who they believe is deportable. It is a request that, on the suspect’s release, ICE is alerted so they can take them into custody.
This East Texas town hasn’t held a city council election in at least 18 years
In Kennard, City Council members have been appointed after previous members decide to retire — or die.
Trump prosecutor quit top DOJ post for lowly NY job in likely bid to ‘get’ former president, expert says
The prosecutor whose opening statement kicked off the historic trial of Former President Donald Trump left a lofty perch in the Biden administration Justice Department for his current comparatively modest New York City job – a career move that legal analysts describe as puzzling and one that’s prompted questions regarding motivation. Even though Matthew Colangelo is only now sitting in a courtroom formally opposing the former president, his work has for years involved investigating Trump and his businesses, despite working for different prosecutorial offices at varying levels of government. Colangelo’s sudden switch from top DOJ official to a role with the DA’s office in the Big Apple has particularly raised eyebrows. “It’s very odd. It’s usually the other way around. . . . And frankly, that sounds to me like somebody who thought, ‘Ah, here’s an opportunity to go and get Donald Trump,’” attorney and former member of the Federal Election Commission, Hans von Spakovsky, told Fox News Digital in a phone interview this month. It’s rare to see successful, ambitious attorneys willingly climb several steps down the career ladder, experts note. “It is a little unusual,” Heritage Foundation senior legal fellow Zack Smith said of Colangelo’s career moves. “Particularly, the position he had at the Justice Department was a fairly high ranking one . . . he spent some time in the New York Attorney General’s office, he also spent some time as a career staffer in the DOJ Civil Rights Division. He was in leadership in the Justice Department, and then immediately from that leadership position – an acting leadership position – went to the DA’s office.” NY PROSECUTORS REVEAL ‘ANOTHER CRIME’ TRUMP ALLEGEDLY TRIED TO CONCEAL WITH FALSIFIED BUSINESS RECORDS Colangelo’s current case marks the first time a former president has stood trial on criminal charges. It stems from payments made by Trump’s former personal attorney to a former pornographic actress ahead of the 2016 election and was brought forth last year by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. The trial began in earnest this week – after a week of jury selection – as Colangelo delivered his opening on Monday, seeking to make the prosecution’s case that Trump had illegally falsified business records to conceal another crime. Trump is no fan of Colangelo’s. He has slammed the attorney as a “radical left [prosecutor] who was put into the state working for Letitia James and was then put into the District Attorney’s office to run the trial against Trump.” That comment came before the presiding judge, Juan Merchan, imposed a gag order that prevents Trump from speaking publicly about witnesses or the prosecution team. Colangelo has a lengthy government resume, working in a variety of legal roles that date to the Obama administration. He most recently served nearly two years in Biden’s DOJ, including as acting associate attorney general and overseeing the Antitrust, Civil, Civil Rights, Environment and Natural Resources, and Tax Divisions. Colangelo’s background includes time spent clerking for Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor when she served on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and seven years at the NAACP’s legal defense and educational fund. Afterward, Colangelo worked for three years in the DOJ’s civil rights division during the Obama administration. He also served as deputy director of the Obama-Biden Administration’s National Economic Council and as chief of staff at the Labor Department under the Obama administration, the DA’s office detailed in a press release. Colangelo’s decision in 2017 to take a job in the New York Attorney General’s Office – filling a role left vacant by the departure of his future boss, Bragg – led to the first in a series of cases against Trump. Colangelo assisted a case in 2018 that dissolved Trump’s former NY-based charity, the Donald J. Trump Foundation, after prosecutors alleged that it had illegally coordinated with Trump’s 2016 campaign. The charity was dissolved after a judge found that Trump had “breached his fiduciary duty.” That same year, Colangelo worked as lead prosecutor in a case involving the Trump administration’s push to include a citizenship question in the 2020 census. The Justice Department ultimately decided to print the 2020 Census without the citizenship question due to lengthy court battles that included having the Supreme Court weigh in that the question could not be added for the time being. “I think given his time at the AG’s office, in the Justice Department, and now at the district attorney’s office, it certainly appears like his career path in the past several years has been designed to target and essentially try to bring charges against Donald Trump in whatever form or fashion he can do so,” Smith said. TRUMP URGED TO IGNORE SUPREME COURT, PRINT CENSUS QUESTION: ‘BECAUSE WE SHOULD,’ GOP LAWMAKER SAYS Von Spakovsky cited Colangelo’s previous employment with the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division as a potential concern, calling the DOJ department a home for “some of the most unethical lawyers” he’s ever met. Von Spakovsky worked in the Civil Rights Division from 2001 to 2005 but did not overlap with Colangelo. He spoke to Fox Digital about what he had personally experienced in the office and how he viewed the operation of the office in the years that followed. “I’ve now been a lawyer for four decades. I work at Heritage. I’ve worked in the federal government. I was in private practice. I was in-house corporate counsel,” he said. “I have never in my entire career met lawyers more partisan, more far-left radical ideologues than I met in the Civil Rights Division in the career ranks. “I was in the voting section to start with . . . they had about 100 people – half lawyers, about half support staff. I have never in my life been met with the kinds of hostility I was met with when I started my job there.” Von Spakovsky said he believes the reason for his chilly reception was “because they knew that politically I was a conservative,” though noting he was a
Trump attorney, Supreme Court justice clash on whether a president who ‘ordered’ a ‘coup’ could be prosecuted
An attorney for former President Donald Trump in the presidential immunity hearing clashed with Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan over a hypothetical question on whether a president who “ordered” a “coup” could be prosecuted. “If it’s an official act, there needs to be impeachment and conviction beforehand,” Trump’s attorney John Sauer argued Thursday before the Supreme Court, which is being broadcast publicly via audio only. Sauer’s statement was in response to Justice Elena Kagan’s hypothetical question, asking if a president who is no longer in office directing the military to stage a coup would constitute an “official act.” “He’s no longer president. He wasn’t impeached. He couldn’t be impeached. But he ordered the military to stage a coup. And you’re saying that’s an official act?,” Kagan asked. LIVE UPDATES: TRUMP NY TRIAL TESTIMONY RESUMES AS SUPREME COURT HEARS IMMUNITY ARGUMENTS “I think it would depend on the circumstances, whether it was an official act. If it were an official act, again, he would have to be impeached,” Sauer responded. “What does that mean? Depend on the circumstances? He was the president. He is the commander in chief. He talks to his generals all the time. And he told the generals, ‘I don’t feel like leaving office. I want to stage a coup.’ Is that immune [from prosecution]?” Kagan pressed. SUPREME COURT TO HEAR ARGUMENTS IN TRUMP PRESIDENTIAL IMMUNITY CASE Sauer responded it would “depend on the circumstances of whether there was an official act” if the hypothetical president would be immune from prosecution. “That answer sounds to me as though it’s like, ‘Yeah, under my test it’s an official act.’ But that sure sounds bad, doesn’t it?” Kagan said. TRUMP SAYS NY JUDGE MERCHAN ‘THINKS HE IS ABOVE THE SUPREME COURT’ AFTER BARRING HIM FROM IMMUNITY ARGUMENTS “That’s why the framers have a whole series of structural checks that have successfully, for the last 234 years, prevented that very kind of extreme hypothetical. And that is the wisdom of the framers. What they viewed as the risk that needed to be guarded against was not the notion that the president might escape, you know, a criminal prosecution for something, you know, sort of very, very unlikely in these unlikely scenarios,” Sauer responded. “The framers did not put an immunity clause into the Constitution. They knew how there were immunity clauses in some state constitutions. They knew how to give legislative immunity. They didn’t provide immunity to the president. And, you know, not so surprising. They were reacting against a monarch who claimed to be above the law. Wasn’t the whole point that the president was not a monarch and the president was not supposed to be above the law,” Kagan said. The back and forth came as the Supreme Court weighs whether Trump is immune from prosecution in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s election interference case. Smith’s case is currently on pause until the Supreme Court issues a ruling. The case charged Trump with conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding; and conspiracy against rights. The case stems from Jan. 6, 2021, when supporters of Trump breached the U.S. Capitol. TRUMP SLAMS ‘BIDENOMICS’ AHEAD OF COURT, CLAIMS TO HAVE A ‘GOOD CHANCE’ OF WINNING LIBERAL STATE Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges in August, and called on the Supreme Court to weigh whether a former president can be prosecuted for “official acts,” as the Trump legal team argues. The Supreme Court is expected to reach a resolution on whether Trump is immune from prosecution by mid-June. Trump is also part of an ongoing trial in New York City where he is accused of 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree. He pleaded not guilty to each charge. The trial prevented Trump from attending the Supreme Court hearing Thursday. BIDEN INSISTS RED STATE WON TWICE BY TRUMP IS SUDDENLY ‘IN PLAY’ The NY v. Trump case focuses on Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen paying former pornographic actor Stormy Daniels $130,000 to allegedly quiet her claims of an alleged extramarital affair she had with the then-real estate tycoon in 2006. Trump has denied having an affair with Daniels. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP Prosecutors allege that the Trump Organization reimbursed Cohen, and fraudulently logged the payments as legal expenses. Prosecutors are working to prove that Trump falsified records with an intent to commit or conceal a second crime, which is a felony. Prosecutors this week said the second crime was a violation of a New York law called “conspiracy to promote or prevent election.” Fox News Digital’s Brooke Singman contributed to this report.