Former Attorney General Eric Holder said Wednesday he is concerned the Supreme Court will reach a “dangerous” conclusion on former President Trump’s presidential immunity claim, in part because it took time for the justices to reveal their ruling. .
Trump made the claim about allegations related to the federal cases he faces over the storage of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago home and charges related to the 2020 election and the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.
A Supreme Court ruling is expected before the end of June.
In an interview on MSNBC’s “Deadline: White House” with host Nicolle Wallace, President Obama’s former attorney general suggested that some judges could argue that Trump might violate criminal law if he does so in his official role as president.
“The notion, for example, that apparently some judges are toying with this, well, if the president violated criminal law but did so in his official capacity, there might be some basis for saying that’s OK,” Holder said. he said. “We need to take a step back and think about this.
“You know, wait a minute, a president can violate American criminal law if he or she is doing something in his or her official capacity. This is an absurd and dangerous conclusion,” Holder said. “And I’m concerned, given the time it took the Supreme Court to decide this case, that something along those lines might emerge from the Supreme Court. ”
Holder also said that “anything less than a Supreme Court ruling that says ‘A president should be law-abiding, just as any other American citizen should be,’ anything other than that is absurd.”
Trump and his lawyers have argued that former presidents have criminal immunity for official acts.
The Supreme Court’s next decision dates are Thursday and Friday, but it is unclear which decisions will be withdrawn on those days.
Some Trump observers and critics do not think the court will find Trump to have immunity.
Conservative lawyer and regular Trump critic George Conway said last week on CNN that he believes Trump will “lose big” in the case.
“I trust the court on this. I think… Donald Trump will lose. I think he’s going to miss a lot,” Conway said. “I think there might be some wrinkles in the opinion that might add some steps to the process, but at the end of the day, I don’t think his argument is going to pan out.”
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
