Prediction: Trump will argue that his NY conviction must be overturned because the court admitted evidence of conversations he had with his staff while President in order to prove knowledge and intent. He will argue those conversations were “official acts.” Judge Merchan and higher NY courts …./1
/2 ….will reject the argument based on finding that those conversations were not official acts and that including it was harmless error.
Trump will appeal from NY’s highest court to SCOTUS.
I’m really quite confused on the exclusionary rule re: conversations as evidence establishing official acts/presumptively immune/unofficial acts vs conversations as official acts.
My question is: If the state court rules that the charged conduct was an unofficial act based only on the public record (e.g. evidence before he took office), does the exclusionary rule still apply re: the conversations etc after he took office? What immunity remains?
Not only can’t official acts be the basis for a charge, they can’t be offered as EVIDENCE about another act. Say Trump asks DoJ to shoot an actor he hates. They say no. He leaves office and hires a private hit man to kill the actor. The official act of asking DoJ can’t be introduced as evidence.
I mean at a certain point these how-would-it-go -in-court-if-he-abuses-this-new-power scenarios are all self-defeating because once we’re in them he would just abuse more power to ensure it never gets near a court in the first place
Imagine being so foolish as to let a court decide whether you're a crime-doer once you start using the presidency to do crimes! You'd have to completely miss the point of the crime-doing!
like, I don’t think he has an appetite limit to how many da’s he would have disappeared or charged with terrorism or window-plunged or anything but once you do a few you probably don’t need to do all that many more
I'm still not sure how this doesn't just devolve into every Vice President trying to kill every President. Between pardoning themselves and no evidence to offer, how do you charge or convict such a case?
