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.

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 ?' Kagan pressed.

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. 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.

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