Trump lawyer goes on defense after assassination comment: ‘He didn’t kill anyone’

Former President Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba defended the immunity argument on Sean Hannity’s show brought by a Trump attorney during a Tuesday hearing, saying that Trump “didn’t kill anyone.” 

Trump’s attorney John Sauer said Tuesday, during the hearing that reviewed a motion to potentially toss his election interference charges, that the former president should have immunity from all prosecution to overturn the 2020 election since he was not convicted by the Senate, and because all of his conduct, currently under investigation, was part of his duty as the sitting commander in chief at the time. 

But when Sauer was asked during his appearance in front of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals panel if the president would be persecuted if he ordered SEAL Team Six to assassinate a political rival, he responded by saying that the action would be barred considering a former executive’s broad immunity to criminal prosecution. 

“He would have to be impeached and convicted,” Sauer said Tuesday. 

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Hannity asked Habba later Tuesday the same hypothetical if the president would be acting in his “capacity” and if he would have “immunity.”

In response, Habba slammed the judge for throwing out “hypotheticals that do not currently exist” and said that the team now needs to navigate “slippery slope” arguments. 

“The real facts are so easy to win that we have to argue now the slippery slope argument of if he kills someone, will [he] be held accountable,” Habba said. “He didn’t kill anyone. He didn’t cause an insurrection. He didn’t get charged for it. But they’re using hypotheticals to frighten America.”

Sauer’s immunity argument received pushback from special counsel Jack Smith’s legal team and the three-judge panel. 

James Pearce, a lawyer with Smith’s office, went after the notion, saying that it would bring an “extraordinarily frightening future.”

“What kind of world are we living in … if a president orders his SEAL team to murder a political rival and then resigns or is not impeached — that is not a crime? I think that is an extraordinarily frightening future that should weigh heavily on the court’s decision,” Pearce said Tuesday.