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Hey ladies and gentlemen this is Carmine Zebia for Explain America and former President Donald
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Trump just got some fantastic news from the Supreme Court. Before we get started please
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make sure you like, comment, share and subscribe. Those little things really help us out and they
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help our channel continue to grow. So former President Donald Trump's attorneys and Jack
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Smith's attorneys, the special counsel who's prosecuting him, were before the Supreme Court
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today arguing over presidential immunity. Now the good news for Trump is Jack Smith's team is
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arguing against you know immunity for criminal acts they say or acts that could be deemed criminal
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However Justice Clarence Thomas kind of gobsmacked him mentioning cases where presidents could have
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been charged criminally if immunity was not a thing and he specifically mentioned
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Operation Mongoose. But there's a series of operations, Obama's drone strikes for example
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where these things you know could have happened and people could have been charged criminally
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That's very unfortunate for Jack Smith but it's very good news for President Trump because it
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shows that at least one Supreme Court justice is on his side. Now while I do not believe the
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president will get blanket immunity nor should he because we'd have a dictator then, you have to
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think beyond President Trump. It's a very dangerous precedent. I think you could have a couple of
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options here. One, this case gets kicked back and kicked back to just you know decide if the
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president was involved in official acts here then goes back to the Supreme Court. This is going to
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delay the case well past the presidential election which is not what Jack Smith wants. Or the Supreme
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Court can decide on a narrow ruling of immunity which would affect Trump here, declare these to
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be official acts and end Jack Smith's case and end a lot of cases including Fannie Willis
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and you know other cases that are against him right now and stop Arizona from maybe indicting him
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So a lot of cases on the line here, a lot of things. I want you to hear this exchange with
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Justice Thomas and let me know what you think when you like, comment, share, and subscribe
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I'm Carmine Sabia for Explain America. We love you guys. God bless you. Take care everybody
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All of the important tasks that the Constitution reposes in him. Over in not so distant past, the presidents or certain presidents have engaged in
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various activity, coups or operations like Operation Mongoose when I was a teenager
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uh and yet there were no prosecutions. Why? If what you're saying is right
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it would seem that that would have been ripe for criminal prosecution of someone
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So Justice Thomas, I think this is a central question. The reason why there have not been
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prior criminal prosecutions is that there were not crimes and I want to explain why there are
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layers of safeguards that assure that former presidents do not have to lightly assume criminal
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liability for any of their official acts. At the outset, there is a statutory construction
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principle that is applicable here. It arises when there is a serious constitutional question
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about applying a criminal statute to the president's acts. It is not, and I'm sure that
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we will discuss this, that no statute can apply to the president in his official capacity absent
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a designation of the president in it. But there is a principle that if there is a serious
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constitutional question, courts will strive to construe the statute so that it does not apply
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to the president. In addition to that, the president, I think has been mentioned earlier
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has access to advice from the Attorney General and it would be a due process problem to prosecute
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a president who received advice from the Attorney General that his actions were lawful absent the
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kind of collusion or conspiracy that itself represented a criminal violation, which I don't
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really see as being a realistic option. And then if I could say one more thing, because you raised
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the question about..
#Legal
#Constitutional Law & Civil Rights


