Reporters keep plunging to bizarre new lows in coverage of Donald Trump. The new jam: his lawyer argued presidents can assassinate rivals. Except he didn’t, at all. …
[Judge] Pan kept trying to get Sauer to admit he was walking that elephant across the Grand Canyon, and Sauer kept denying it, arguing that there’s a specific procedure for prosecuting presidents, as a remedy against misuse of criminal courts for political purposes. At no time did he endorse the idea of presidents assassinating anyone. He even went so far as to cite an OLC memo from the Department of Justice saying “you’d expect a speedy impeachment and conviction” in such an exceptional case.
Again, you can agree or disagree with the immunity argument, but just from a press perspective: the “SEAL Team Six” moment not only didn’t come from Trump’s team, it was never really argued at all. What actually happened was Pan spent a ton of time fishing for that sound bite, didn’t get it, and finally moved on.
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