they 70s dirt on scene cnn breaking news. >> welcome to inside politics. i'm dana bash and we start with a monumental supreme court decision on the power of the presidency the highest court in the land is just ruled that donald trump is entitled to some level of immunity from prosecution for actions he took in the final days of his presidency it could put big parts of the election subversion case against him in jeopardy and sets a critical new precedent for future commanders in chief the split 6-3 opinion was authored by chief justice john roberts, who writes in part, we conclude under our constitutional structure of separated powers, the nature of presidential power requires that a former president have some immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts during his tenure. for an office. at least with respect to the president's exercise of his core constitutional powers this immunity must be absolute he also said that there are some parts of what the president does. that is less certain which we're going to get to in just a minute now, justice sotomayor wrote on behalf of the court's liberal justices, quote, with fear for our democracy, i dissent. the justices sent the case back to a lower court for a decision about what counts as an official act and what doesn't cnn's kaitlan collins and paula reid are both outside at the supreme court. kaitlan. i'm going to start with you. excuse me, paula, let me start with you, actually, because kaitlan, you're amazing, but she's got the legal degrees, so i'm going to start with her and i certainly don't tell me what you think based on the way that this decision was written, the majority by the chief justice about whether or not the district court really is going to be able to decide we know about the timing, but maybe even ever about these critical questions about the former president's conduct leading up to and on january 6, we'll dana, they're going to have to try because the supreme court has sending this right back down to the district court. they've given a judge, tanya chutkan, a test that she now has to apply to apply to this indictment. they were saying the former presidents have absolute immunity for official acts related to their core constitutional power. and speaking with sources familiar with the trump legal teams thinking they believe this is a major victory because they believe not only will any charges related to official acts be tossed out, they also think that this will cover key evidence that jack smith would need to prove what's left of his case. so this will require additional proceedings, additional briefings, likely some hearings possibly more appeals. the biggest thing from this decision today, dana is not only a test, only not just for former president trump, but for future presidents before the country related to immunity. but it also signals to us that it is unlikely and probably impossible for whatever is left of this trial to go before november. yeah, which we knew was the likely scenario, but this steals the still no question about it paula, hang on. because kaitlan, i do want to talk to you about what you're hearing from trump world. you i know have been talking to not only the former president's attorneys, but his campaign yeah. i mean, it's not the full immunity that donald trump has been claiming for months that he believes that he has, but it certainly is hard to see how they could get any more of a win out of what we are reading in the supreme court decision today. it's exactly what his attorneys is legal team and his campaign had been predicting that it was kind of split the baby and say, no, that is not as blinken immunity for everything. a president does, but it does say there is immunity for what he does. that's an official act and not for what is considered an unofficial act, but therein is where the complication lies and that is an important complication for jack smith's case here in washington, but also as paula noted, all of the cases that donald trump is still facing from georgia to florida, to the one here in washington. so trump himself is posting in all caps saying it's a big win for our constitution, for our democracy. he says he is proud to be an american with an exclamation point. but here's where it's going to be the key question, which is what this means for the case here in washington, and how quickly it can proceed, and what judge chutkan is going to do because a little little-known a little part of this that is incredibly important in this opinion is where chief justice john roberts is saying that what they did, what a president did, that is an official act that cannot be used as evidence to bolster accusations related to unofficial acts. that includes interactions with the justice department here, that would mean donald trump let's conversations to try to put geoff clark a loyalist as the acting attorney general in the final days of his administration to do his bidding to overturn the election. it says there's a presumption of immunity when it comes to his dealings with vice president pence, and that the judge here has to decide whether or not his behavior has influenced campaign on pence can be considered part of this. that is a key decision here, and that is why this is being viewed as such a big victory within the trump team. because one, it's not a black and white answer, it's complicated and two, it's going to delay this case even further. and they hope pass the election i mean, really fascinating what a day kaitlan and polo, we couldn't have done it without your expertise and your amazing reporting. thank you so much. and i've got some other great attorneys and analysts here with me at the table. cnn legal analyst carrie cordero, elliot williams, and elie honig, along with former fbi director and cnn analyst andrew mccabe and former attorney bill brennan is with us and we will get you in one second. bill. i just want to start off with the big picture here. i read one quote and i'm going to read one more from the chief justice kind of summarizing this length the his opinion and of course, there are concurring the dissents will get to in a second. under are constitutional structure of separated powers, the nature of presidential power and titles, a former president to absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority. 40 and he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts. there is no immunity for unofficial acts. so that sums it up now i don't want to start with you. i don't excuse me. elie, i want to start with you. i don't want to get into the specifics quite yet about the january 6 case because i want to do that in a minute. but because this is precedent setting and this is about the country going forward and how presidents can and cannot be immune talk about it with, in that big picture context. so we loved this expression. no person is above the law. and i think today confirms that we have to modify that a bit with a little footnote, except in many circumstances, the president, it's just a reality. we can no longer pretend that the president's just any other person and shouldn't be treated differently. it's not quite at the level well of the president is a king, i think that's a bit hyperbolic. but what the supreme court has done today is vastly expanded the powers of the presidency and made it extraordinarily difficult. arguably, as a practical matter, impossible to even prosecutor president for anything he does while he's in office. so this opinion in larger specs was as expected. we talked about in advance, all of us i think of set on air. it's not going to be an all the way win, all the way lost are probably going to create some tests about within or outside the scope of the official job, official acts. but the supreme court went even further here to promote and expand the powers of the presidency i would agree, and i think what they also did was leave open a series of really profound questions that are going to be quite difficult for courts at all levels to sort out. number one, what are they decide ultimately isn't official versus an unofficial act? and that will require detailed fact-finding from quarts to figure that out, number two who decides so we'll talk about the georgia case in a moment. it's a state case that relied on some official acts of the president. do you have to now file a separate federal lawsuit to sort that out? a state judge in georgia for that. so that's big. and then as we talked about in this quote, this idea of evidence of official acts cannot be used he used to establish an official act that eviscerate virtually any chance of ever holding a president and accountable every day at president does something official, a conversation with his attorney general is an official act in some way. so how do you figure that out? it just sort of a map that they leapt as well. i'm glad you brought that up because i was reading that and i thought, i'm not at a lawyer, but i think you have to use evidence in order to prosecute pretty much anything. >> all right. let's talk about the specific case that the indictment i should say that brought this all the way to the supreme court. of course, this is about january 6, and everything around it and we just kinda broke down going through the majority opinion what they said is and is not considered immune let's just look at this conversations with dod doj immune total immunity. got anything that the president talks about with the attorney general, anybody else? immunity cannot be prosecuted no matter what alleged pressure on vice president pence. so presumptive immunity remanded for review, meaning it's going to go down back down to the district court to an evaluation of the substance of the conversations to see whether or not they fall right in the scope of the day. okay. thank you. okay. so what's put that back up? alleged pressure on state electors. we know about all of this that conversations that he was having with people in all of these states, these key states that he was trying to maybe squeeze some more boats at aboard, maybe change the results again, remanded for review that's right. and it seemed the court really keyed on this factor that those allegations took place between the president and others who are outside of the outside of the scope of his staff. essentially, those are outsiders. and so therefore, it's a ball in the air to be determined by the district. >> okay. last his own conduct allegedly inciting violence. those are my words, not the words of the of the of the majority, but that's effectively what he was charged with doing. his actions that led to what happened at the capital january 6 again remanded for review again, a very fact-based reviews. >> what you would need to determine each one of those alleged acts or elements of conduct against his responsibilities. however proving that is become enormously tougher for the prosecutors now because they cannot rely on any evidence that falls within the scope of his official duties. so all of that very key evidence conversations with members of his staff, with members of his other executive branch agencies. that's out because it's covered by immunity. so the prosecutors have potentially some very high hurdles to get over here. okay. so bill brennan, thank you for your patience. i wanted to kind of set the table for our viewers because this is a what and we thought we would try to pare down what did and did not happen in this majority opinion. so if you were jack smith right now, is there any way that you can change the indictment? against former president trump to fit within the parameters of the dentition dallies in a tough position because you can really make an argument on all the open cases and even the closed case with judge john with regard to this case. >> but let's take the jack smith's case you have to read the immunity decision in context with the fisher decision that came down last week. there's four counts in that case. toba of obstruction. the fisher dealt with and to hear fraud on the u.s. and florida on the voters the fisher decision basically said, unless there's a documentary connection simply being merely present or making verbs and making statements. that's not enough. so i think it was weakened on friday with regards to those two accounts. with regard to today this blanket of immunity has spread further over the presidency. these axis now, i have to be determined on a factual basis. whether the court does that as a matter of law or what you can make an argument that the jury would have to do it if it's factual, but he's either going to have to pare down the case or i guess you could try to i don't know where the statute is dismissed and mandate that case it is in serious trouble. you could then take this argument and applied to the georgia case that if when the president called the secretary of state, he was immune, where the effects there, you could really make, you really want to stretch it. you could make an argument that part of the case tried in new york, dealt with the dali's would say hope hicks and others in the administration, were they official acts? i mean, this the more i read this case is a thick why razi opinion when i first glanced at it, it seemed like a win in favor of the former president. the more i digested it's this thing is really far-reaching and it's a, it's a landmark decision to steal the line from judge justice gorsuch, is it really is one for the ages. yeah landmark decision. you don't hear that very much. it's saved for a really key cases isn't there's no question that this opinion falls right in that stay with us because i want to turn to the dissent. carrie. and there was the sat was written by justice sotomayor. we also had from from the lamp kagan? no, no, from ketanji brown, jackson, but i wanted to start with justice sotomayor and i believe i'm going to pull up just for the control room the first justice sotomayor never in the history. so this is what she said, never in the history of our republic has a president had reason to believe that he would be immune from criminal prosecution if he used the trappings of his office to violate the criminal law moving forward, however, all former president's will be cloaked in such immunity if the occupant occupant of that office misuses official power or a personal gain the criminal law that the rest of us must abide will not provide a backstop with fear of for our democracy. i dissent. >> it's a very strong statement by justice sotomayor and it's understandable from the context of how broad the majority seems to interpret immunity in this case they, the majority doesn't just say that the former president is immune for official acts, which it makes very clear. >> it also really broadens it out and there's a part that i want to point to in the opinion where it says the immunity we've recognized extends to the outer perimeter of the president's official responsibilities, covering actions, so long as they are not manifestly or palpably beyond his authority. and so i think although the court in this case really hands it back down to the lower court in this specific case involving former president trump it is tipping the scale for the lower court to really take a very expansive view of what official acts are. so this is a ct of confusion in some way. it tosses so many things back to the lower courts. and let me just give one specific example that she was talking about sotomayor. she talks about what if the a president orders the navy seal team six to assassinate a political rival immune organizes a military coup to hold onto power. immune takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon. immune, immune, immune, immune. i'm not sure that's accurate. i mean, it's a bit high for bolick, but i think what that does is nicely underscore that we're going to have some really difficult decisions to make. it's not clear whether there would be immunity. i mean, district court judge could easily look at that scenario and say, no way i find that ordering and assassination of arrival through seal team six, that's out of the scope, so i don't necessarily agree with that extent, but she's right. we now have some very difficult problems to wrestle i think she's a lot closer to right than wrong. yes. i think that when you combine with you combine her concerns with the way they articulated this vision again and again and again, they come back to this idea that oh, this immunity is absolutely necessary, not only is it constitutionally required by separation of powers, but without it president would be chilled from taking bold and decisive action. they repeat that again and again and again. so basically what you have here is the supreme court imposing its judgment that that principle that we must have bold and decisive president's is more important than the principle that justice sotomayor is advancing, which is it's just we should have presidents who obey the law it's really, it's going to take a very long time for us to digest what this actually means don't go anywhere. >> we have former excuse me, if we're going to talk about former trump adviser steve bannon, who barely is now in prison. but before he reported and grand fashion, he hosted one last broadcast. what he had to say as next we are outside of the federal prison in danbury, connecticut. and your hosted tonight by federal prisoner number 056355 09 an unprecedented debate as only cnn could do it with a record audience around the world are kind thank three is being destroyed. >> where are the most admired country in the world for the most complete coverage through election day and beyond. followed, cnn we need your help go online, call or scan this code to support wwf's global conservation efforts. i symbolically adopting an elephant for only $12 a month. it's just $0.40 de, to 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