Justice Kentanji Brown Jackson Grills Trump Attorney About Dangers of Allowing ‘Most Powerful Person in the World’ to Be Immune from Prosecution

Supreme Court Justice Kentanji Brown Jackson intensely grilled attorney D. John Sauer during oral arguments as he attempted to argue former President Donald Trump was entitled to immunity.

The case made its way to the Supreme Court of the United States after Judge Tanya Chutkan denied two motions to dismiss based on First Amendment and presidential immunity claims in the federal prosecution case filed by Special Counsel Jack Smith regarding Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Trump appealed Chutkan’s rulings, and Sauer previously argued at the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals that a president could order SEAL Team Six to assassinate a political rival without being prosecuted unless he were first impeached and convicted, a stunning argument that was rejected unanimously by the appellate court, and Trump appealed again.

Thursday morning, attorneys representing Trump and the special counsel’s office argued their cases before the nation’s highest court, and the justices’ questions seemed to indicate a high degree of skepticism of Sauer’s arguments that Trump was entitled to immunity, including revisiting the SEAL Team Six assassination hypothetical.

Jackson questioned Sauer about the difference between a president’s private acts, for which there was no immunity, and official acts, for which there was immunity, and said she wanted to “explore the assumption” that public acts get immunity.

“Why is it, as a matter of theory,” she asked, “that the president would not be required to follow the law when he is performing his official acts? Everyone else, everyone else — there are lots of folks who have very high powered jobs who make a lot of consequential decisions, and they do so against the backdrop of potential criminal prosecution, if they should break the law in that capacity. And we understand and we know is a matter of fact that the President of the United States has the best lawyers in the world. When he’s making a decision, he can consult with pretty much anybody as to whether or not this thing is criminal or not. So why would we have a situation in which we would say that the president should be making official acts without any responsibility for following the law?”

Sauer replied that he “respectfully disagree[d] with that characterization” and said “the president absolutely does have responsibility” and “absolutely is required to follow the law in all his official acts,” but argued that the “remedy for that” was the question, whether or not he could be sent to prison for making a bad decision, after he leaves office.

Jackson reiterated that “other people who have consequential jobs and who are required to follow the law, make those determinations against the backdrop of that same kind of risk, so what is it about the president?” She noted Sauer had argued that it was because a president “has to be able to act boldly” and make “consequential decisions…but again, there are lots of people who have to make life and death kinds of decisions,”  but they have to follow the law “and if they don’t, they could be sent to prison.”

Jackson brought up the Fitzgerald case, noting that there was a logical argument that a president is in a “different position than other people” and therefore should be immune from private civil liability “because of the nature of his job, the high-profile nature, and the fact that he touches so many different things.”

“But when we’re talking about regarding criminal liability,” she continued, “I don’t understand how the president stands in any different position with respect to the need to follow the law as he’s doing his job than anyone else.”

“He is required to follow the law,” said Sauer.

“But he’s not, if there’s no threat of criminal prosecution,” Jackson interjected. “What prevents the president from just doing whatever he wants?”

Sauer brought up several “structural checks” from past cases, as well as Congress’ impeachment power and public oversight, but Jackson was not convinced.

“I’m not sure that’s that’s much a backstop,” she said. “And what I’m I guess more worried about using to be worried about — you seem to be worried about the president being chilled — I think that we would have a really significant opposite problem if the president wasn’t chilled, if someone with those kinds of powers, the most powerful person in the world with the greatest amount of authority, could go into office knowing that there would be no potential penalty for committing crimes. I’m trying to understand what the disincentive is from turning the Oval Office into the seat of criminal activity in this country.”

Sauer attempted to start making an argument about something George Washington had said, and Jackson cut him off. “Let me put this worry on the table: if the potential for criminal liability is taken off the table, wouldn’t there be a significant risk that future presidents would be emboldened to commit crimes with abandon while they’re in office?”

The “possibility” that a president could be prosecuted “might be what has kept this office from turning into the kind of crime center that I’m envisioning,” she continued, “but once we say, ‘No criminal liability, Mr. President, you can do whatever you want,’ I’m worried that we would have a worse problem than the problem of the president feeling constrained to follow the law while he’s in office.”

Watch the clip above via CNN .