Check abuses of power especially the use of official power for private gain. Here the Executive Branch is enforcing congressional statutes and seeking accountability for petitioners alleged misuse of official power to subvert democracy. That is a compelling public interest. In response, petitioner raises concerns about potential abuses. But established legal safeguards provide layers of protections with the Article Iii Courts providing the ultimate check. The existing system is a carefully balanced framework. It protects the president but not at the high constitutional cost of blanket criminal immunity. That has been the understanding of every president from the framing through watergate and up to today. This court should preserve it. I welcome the courts questions. Does the president have immunity or are you saying there is no immunity even for official acts . Yes, justice thomas. But i think it is important to put in perspective the position that we are offering the court today. The
dangerous behavior in the article ii branch. should they come out for the president and say they want a fair process, they want to see witnesses, they want to see something that mitch mcconnell, lindsey graham and senator blunt are all pretty much saying is not going to happen? what i see among the republicans are poll-tested courage, that is, if their states are telling them that they need to have a drawn-out trial, then they ll get on board. i don t know who is going to have that position. but remember, damon, before christmas the original argument against the democrats were process arguments, and one of them was that they rushed this and the president had no witnesses when the fact is virtually every witness they had in the impeachment inquiry were all trump appointees, employees of trump appointees or government officials, people who work in the administration. in fact, they were all trump witnesses and trump didn t like what they said. so what s the answer now? the answer then w
but the reality is, i ll be surprised if the investigation into this is significantly bipartisan if you start to see substantial criticism. we ll see, maybe they ll surprise us, but i ve said that before and never been surprised, joe. mike barnicle, draw parallels with watergate? this sounds like something that john mitchell would have tried to do. i m not so sure that even he would have been allowed to get what it. but again, let s just the article i branch is investigating the article ii branch. the article ii branch spice on the article i branch. and not just generally, but explicitly the very people who are investigating the president. are there any precedents there? joe, i had an interesting conversation yesterday with the members of the united states senate and the first question raised was, it makes you wonder. this particular action makes you wonder what else is there that
president s lead. i mean, or else,thal lose their jobs. these people aren t being appointed pope. they serve at the pleasure of the president, so, yes. but i think there may be something else, too, in terms of the litany of names you used. i think in washington, there is always tension between what we call the article i branch, the congress, and the article ii branch, the executive. the president, president obama is going up to the hill, allegedly, to try to push his guys to save obamacare. i don t think he s going to have to work that hard to do that. but i also suspect there s going to be not a plea, but an undercurrent of, don t make this guy s life any easier than they made my life and remember how they treated me as president and feel free to block whatever you think you need to block. clarence, thank you very much for joining us. happy new year to you. rich, we ll see you a little bit later in the show so stick around. ahead, we heard of those two