>> the republican front runners nixon defense goes poof. >> when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal. >> tonight, why two major rulings against donald trump could be jack smith's biggest victory to date. then, the tragic culmination of the george santos saga. >> you have no business in this building! tonight, the long road to today's historic expulsion. >> that makes me jewish. it's always been a party favor, everyone's always laughed. now everybody is canceling me. >> just when you thought ron desantis couldn't get cringier. >> you are trolling folks and trying to find migrants to play political games and get some attention seeking out trump trump. by the way, how is that going for? you >> all in starts right now. good evening from new york, i'm chris hayes. we've got huge developments tonight in two of the trials of donald trump. just within the last half hour, judge tanya chutkan, who was overseeing the federal criminal case of january 6th and the attempt to overturn the 2020 election, issued a withering rejection of the ex presidents attempt to get his crimal case thrown out of court. trump and his lawyers had argued that he had total presidential immunity, and so the case should be dismissed outright. chutkan rejected that argument saying in part, quote, defendants for your service as commander-in-chief did not bestow on him the divine right of kings to evade the criminal accountability that governs his fellow citizens. now, this ruling, in that criminal case, comes today in the wake of a federal appeals court ruling, that donald trump can face legal accountability for inciting the insurrection on january 6th in a civil case. that case brought by capitol police officers and lawmakers who sued donald trump back in 2021. as the washington post explains, they brought this suit under a roughly 150 year old law designed to combat kkk violence after the civil war. they argue trump violated th statute, barring the use of force, threats, or intimidation to prevent government officials from carrying out their duties, by conspiring with members of far-right groups to keep lawmakers from coirming the results of the 2020 election. again, similarly, in that case, donald trump and his lawyers claimed that as they had in the federal case to steal the election, that he had absolute immunity of president. but he could not be held civilly liable or accountable for his actions around the attempted coup. now, all that is a clear embodiment of the dictatorial powers that donald trump wants to ascribe to the presidency, at least when he occupies it. while he was still in office, trump repeatedly spoke about his absolute power to do whatever he likes. >> i have the right to do whatever i want as president. but, i don't even talk about that. it gives me all of these rights, at a level that nobody has ever seen before. when somebody is the president of the united states, the authority is total, and that's the way it's got to be. it's total. >> after he left the white house as the legal pressure increased, trump zeroed in on this defense, declaring at the end of last year, quote, as president, i have total immunity. just a few months ago, his lawyers in the federal elections case made the argument plainly, on national television. >> everything that president trump did was while he was in office, as a president. he is now immune from prosecution for acts that he takes in connection with those policies. >> according to donald trump and his lawyers, the president of the united states can just do whatever he wants. he can never be held accountable for any of it while -- things he did while in office, even after he leaves office. this is trump's view of presidential power, it's the view he will embody if he's reelected next year. it is the view that judge tanya chutkan knocked down today in the federal criminal case, and the circuit court in washington d.c. also knocked down today in that civil case. the chief judge in that case explained, quote, when the president acts outside the functions of his office, he does not continue to enjoy immunity from damages liability just because he happens to be the president. when he acts in an unofficial, private capacity, he is subject to civil suits like any private citizen. when it first term president ops to seek a second term, his campaign to win reelection is not an official presidential act. and trump himself recognized that he engaged in his campaign to win reelection, including his postelection efforts to alter the declared results in his favor, in his personal capacity as presidential candidate, not in his official capacity as sitting president. now, to be clear on that civil case, the lawsuit, it's not the final ruling on the plaintiffs argument. s not th it will allow the case to go forward, give them a chance to prove that trump broke the law, and that they were injured as a result. but again, in just 24 hours, right, both of these rulings, huge, and hugely needed, providing some perspective on what actual judges think of trump's claims of absolute and total immunity. scott bolden is a former prosecutor, now a white-collar criminal defense attorney who practice the federal bar for sometime. scott, let's start, because criminal law is your area of expertise, i want to talk about this decision just handed down by judge tanya chutkan. i have it right here. judge chutkan is responding to a number of constitutional claims the president made, and this motion by trump was always seen as his best attempt, basically, do not face trial. in the spring. the main claim that he mixes as president, even at the, quote, outer perimeter of his duties, he is absolutely immunity and judge chutkan absolutely eviscerate's that argument. what do you think? >> i think it's the right decision. i really believe these arguments about presidential immunity, given the allegations against donald trump, are always going to be dead on arrival. because his duties and responsibilities have nothing to do with him deciding a riot, telling people to go interrupt the county that votes are electoral votes and what have you, but in fact, in the constitution, chris, the president has no role in the transfer of power or counting the electoral votes and certifying elections. it just doesn't fly. the fact that your president, if you look at clinton be jones from my legal viewers, clinton be jones says, it's not the fact that you're the president, it's the fact that what the acts to committed as president, were they a part of your official duties or not? just being the president doesn't mean you can do anything you want, because again, no one is above the law. >> here, let me read from tanya, judge tanya chutkan's decision here. -- from criminal prosecution and for actions performed within the outer perimeter of his official responsibility. which itself is sort of ludicrous. it's not the outer perimeter to incite a coup and sack the capital. >> there's no perimeter. it's no perimeter. >> there's no perimeter. she says, the constitutions text structure and history do not support that contention. no court or any other branch of government has ever accepted it, and this court will not so hold. whatever the immunities, a sitting president may enjoy, and obviously there's some, you can't get sued as president for when you're doing your official duties, the united states has only one chief executive at a time in that position does not confer a lifelong get out of jail free pass. which is fundamentally the argument that trump's lawyers have been trying to make. >> and they're just not winning arguments. because their view was the acceptable rule of law by the supreme court or even these interim federal pre courts. trump could walk into a store and he could steal from the store, he could shoot someone on fifth avenue in new york and get away with it because as the title of president allows me to murder someone or allows me to steal, or do worse in this country. it's just a fallacy, if you will. it's got to make its way through the courts. but in the end, the civil cases, these criminal cases, they're going to be tried. because i've said to you before, the criminal justice system, the civil justice system, and the judiciary separation of powers, they don't care about politics or what donald trump thinks. they care about civil and criminal justice. and we are going to get that and see that in these trials that are going to start in march of next year. >> i tend to agree. i know you've made that case before. but there is one -- in terms of timing, that ruling, and i think the substance of this ruling is any surprise, again, when you go through his opinion, and i just did, it really does lay bare how preposterous and thin the trump arguments are. there's one argument where he says that it's double jeopardy that he's getting prosecuted for this. they already try to impeach him and it didn't work. that's ludicrous, it doesn't work that way. that's the correct answer to that, which is what judge chutkan does, basically. >> chris, come on, you don't need a law degree to see that. >> you do not. you do not. you don't have much expertise. here's the question, right, on the timing here. this will be appealed, no question. that brings us to the d.c. circuit court. that same d.c. circuit court offers an opinion today, on an unrelated distinct but related matter, which is a claim of absolute immunity for what he did on january 6th in a civil context. where it's actually even a stronger argument, because there is some real importance to the civil immunity a president has under his official duties. you can't have a situation where the presidents being sued for everything the president does while he's president. there's a real body there that they are working off of. and even in that, with a higher threshold, you find a d.c. circuit court including a panel member that was a trump appointee saying, no. this does not fly even in a civil context. >> this was a unanimous decision. and while the civil justice standard is preponderance of the evidence, the criminal justice standard is beyond the reasonable doubt. stice standard ithose standardst when trump is trying to get his case dismissed in the criminal setting or civil setting, because he's trying to get them dismissed at i have presidential immunity. that standard of review and that decision today by the d.c. circuit, his criminal case is going to be appealed and go directly back to that circuit with those same judges who have ruled already. i don't think the difference between criminal and civil, based on his presidential immunity arguments, is going to make much difference. and i'd be very concerned if i were his lawyers, and even appealing it, because you have precedent now. >> yeah, and just one more thing on this. this becomes a timing issue. it's a waiting game. we all understand that, obviously. trump's lawyers, i think, filing today in fulton county, saying you can't try until 2029. we've got a situation here where that, i agree with you. i think on the substance, everyone anticipates these arguments are thin, their week. we now have a ruling from the three judge panel unanimously, the d.c. circuit says even the civil context where you have a better shot on this, we are not buying it. same is going to go with the criminal. that's going to then get appealed to the supreme court. and the real question here, this hail mary pass has always been, can you get enough people on the supreme court to issue a stay, and then just kind of thoughts around a long enough to delay the trial? >> for it's up to the judicial discretion. the trial schedules have been set. he's got to get a stay, even if he goes to the supreme court or goes back to the circuit. that's really up to the judges and their discretion. but the efficiency of the criminal justice system and the public interest the out of control, we've seen trump appointees not be political but be committed to their code of judicial ethics, which i believe, my dad was a judge, i believe once you get appointed, you've got the judicial code of ethics and you've got to do the right thing. we will see, but i've got to tell you, in march, and may of next year, despite the presidential elections, one of these trials, i think, is going to get started, it america is going to see, especially in state court, america is going to see the evidence, see the process and procedures, and it's going to have a direct impact on his political fortunes and the political process of those running for president of the united states. >> scott, i want you to stay with us. i'm also going to bring in anna bower's illegal fellow and correspondent -- ana, it was actually your post on social media that alerted me to this chutkan decision, so thank you for getting to that so quickly. she makes short work of the arguments in this opinion. not necessarily unanticipated, in terms of where she comes down substitute flee, but still, i find it incredibly persuasive and truly leaves very little left of the trump arguments. >> right. i think that's right, chris. you mentioned this isn't totally unexpected. of course, the main question here on the presidential immunity question is whether a former president can be prosecuted after he leaves office for alleged crimes that occurred during his time as the president. there has never been a case or any kind of precedent that supports the idea that this prosecution should be barred. so it's not surprising that a district court judge is going to that not come up with a novel theory, a presidential immunity. just because former president trump believes that she should. , but, the question is going to be as it goes through the appeals stages, what will the appellate courts do? what will the supreme court do? and then, of course, there's also importantly these other first amendment arguments that she rejected, and then some other arguments that were rejected that he raised as well. >> go ahead. >> i think, also, as a way of looking at how important this decision is, we've got all these other motions that are ongoing in fulton county as well, although it is a different legal team, we saw some first amendment arguments today before judge mcafee. i think it's very likely that is steve sadow, trump's council in that case, is going to see eminently raised some presidential immunity arguments there. this decision can give judge mcafee a potential roadmap or a persuasive -- although it's not binding on a georgia judge, because it's a different system, state versus federal system, it's still something that i think would be very persuasive for judge mcafee to look to. persuaswe should say, the first amendment claim here, and, not your point here is an important one. which is that part of the reason that she makes short work of the presidential immunity claim is she says, look, it's not on the text of the constitution, clearly. even the defendant can -- concedes that in his own motion. it doesn't say it. it's not in the history or tradition there. there's nothing that implicates it. the textural argument, that the defendant makes, is ludicrous. the to reach to find it in the impeachment clause. but to your point about precedent, the reason there is some opening here for trump, and this, i think, really is his only chance to avoid this trial happening next year, is that it also is unprecedented in the other direction. even as a legal matter, it hasn't been -- it's not definitive. we haven't prosecuted an ex president for the things he did in office ever before, because gerald ford pardoned nixon before that could happen. >> right. i mean, i think that's right. but i think that judge chutkan makes an excellent point that, you know, the president's -- does not, by way of his office, become exempted or subject to -- i believe she uses some kind of phrase saying that the president does not gain the divine right of kings, just by virtue of being a former commander of chief. as a part of the rule of law in this country, everyone is subject to the same laws. the laws apply equally to all. i think that is the point that judge chutkan is making here. she has reiterated this idea that trump, although a former president, he is still a criminal defendant. and that is something that has been a theme throughout the way that she has handled this case. >> scott, there's another argument that trump makes that is sort of less novel. i think was serious. i think are all pretty unserious, which is this first amendment argument. and to anna's point, they are sort of starting to trot that out in georgia and other places. oh, it's illegal to say an election is stolen? and the point that chutkan makes in her opinion, yeah, certain speech and furtherance of a crime is illegal, that's not protected by the first amendment. you can't say you've got to pay up or my boys are going to come break your head in. well, the first amendment allows me to do it. >> you certainly can't. and you know, if trump believed the election was stolen, he could stand at the highest skyscraper in new york and say that. and his speech is protected. but here, let's think about the allegations. it's not so much that he thought that the alley -- the allocate that the election was stolen, he not only thought, that but he acted upon that. he allegedly committed criminal conduct and conspired with others and allied, and filed false lawsuits. then conspired to get voting machines in atlanta and the whole litany of bad acts, that, coupled with his speech, is allegedly criminal conduct. at least the government believes that it is. and they believe they can prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. that will never work for trump. his arguments only go so far, because when the conduct is put before a jury or judge, it's overwhelming evidence based on what we know publicly, and it will be in the hands of the jury. none of that is really workable. you can't just say something, you can say what you want on the first amendment, but your bad acts with that first amendment speech can be criminal conduct. >> all, right anna bower and scott bolden, thank you both, very much. appreciate it. it's been a heck of a ride, but george santos is no longer a member of the united states congress. we bid a final goodbye to one of the most eccentric liars in congress. the question remains, how exactly did we get here? next. next oh, genius! for more breakthroughs like that- i need a breakthrough card. like ours! with 2.5% cash back on purchases of $5,000 or more. plus unlimited 2% cash back on all other purchases. and with greater spending potential, sam can keep making smart ideas- a brilliant reality! the ink business premier card from chase for business. make more of what's yours. ♪ ♪ ♪ we're building a better postal service. for more on-time deliveries. and easier, affordable ways to ship. so you can deliver even more holiday joy. 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