Ari Melber Flames Trump’s ‘Embarrassing’ Immunity Claim: ‘Such a Bad Legal Argument’

MSNBC’s Ari Melber had some uncharacteristically harsh words for one of the legal arguments advanced by attorneys for former President Donald Trump.

Trump’s legal team filed a brief ahead of oral arguments in front of the U.S. Supreme Court next week. They argue that Gerald Ford’s pardon of Richard Nixon reflected that “the prosecution of a former President should not, and could not fairly, proceed in Article III courts.” The former president has repeatedly said he should be immune from prosecution for acts he took while in office.

Trump is under indictment in four jurisdictions, two of which are federal. On Monday, his criminal case in New York commenced jury selection for a trial that will determine whether Trump falsified business records to conceal hush money payments.

During coverage of the trial, MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell cited Trump’s brief, which read in part:

Respondent argues that DOJ’s admission that “the prosecution of a President is ‘necessarily political’” applies only to sitting Presidents, and politicization vanishes once the President leaves office… In light of not one, but four, hyper-politicized prosecutions pending against President Trump—in addition to politically motivated civil cases—this argument cannot be taken seriously. It also contradicts President Ford’s pardon statement on President Nixon.

Mitchell countered that Ford pardoned Nixon to “avoid a prosecution for an ex-president.”

“Exactly,” Melber concurred. “The whole reason, as you mentioned, Nixon needed and accepted what was a controversial pardon, was that otherwise he could be prosecuted.”

He then took Trump’s attorneys to task:

This new claim by the former president’s lawyers is so weak, it’s such a bad legal argument, that I would say is, number one, embarrassing. Although, the lawyers may have felt inclined they needed to make it because their client demanded it. But it’s embarrassing, number one.

And two, it’s probably counterproductive. I don’t think it’s the kind of argument that will appeal to the Supreme Court. It almost projects a bit of a circus-like, upside-down Alice in Wonderland quality.

He concluded by predicting the argument would “backfire in oral argument at the Supreme Court.”

Watch above via MSNBC.

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