Without "absolute immunity" from criminal prosecution for their "official acts," Donald Trump's lawyer told the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday, presidents will be afraid to do their jobs. "If a president can be charged, put on trial, and imprisoned for his most controversial decisions as soon as he leaves office, that looming threat will distort the president's decision making precisely when bold and fearless action is most needed," D. John Sauer warned the justices during oral arguments in Trump v. United States. "Prosecuting the president for his official acts is an innovation with no foothold in history or tradition," he said, and it is "incompatible with our constitutional structure."
To the contrary, Justice Department lawyer Michael Dreeben argued, "every president from the Framing through Watergate" understood that he could be prosecuted for abusing his powers. Sauer's "novel theory," he warned, "would immunize former presidents [from] criminal liability for bribery, treason, sedition, [and] murder" as well as "for conspiring to use fraud to overturn the results of an election and perpetuate himself in power," as alleged in this case. "Such presidential immunity has no foundation in the Constitution," Dreeben said. "The Framers knew too well the dangers of a king who could do no wrong. They therefore devised a system to check abuses of power, especially the use of official power for private gain."
