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You're listening to KFI AM six forty
the Bill Handle Show on demand on the

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iHeartRadio f And this is KFI AM
six forty Bill Handle here on a Monday

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morning, hot Monday morning, July
one, and boy, what a morning

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it is. And I may just
tick to the topic at hand for a

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while because a decision, the decision
came down just a few minutes ago by

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the US Supreme Court, and it
has really muddied the waters. Now.

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The decision actually in some ways makes
sense. The problem is that this is

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Donald Trump. And I don't think
this could ever happen with any other president.

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I cannot imagine that because Trump's argument
that went up to the Supreme Court

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is he had asked the court to
stop the Jack Smith special prosecutor case against

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him, the criminal trial or the
criminal allegation that the president in trying to

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overturn the election, a legal election
which the courts of courts of deemed legal,

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and trying to overturn the vote of
the electoral college, which the courts

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have deemed legal, and trying to
stop the certification of the announcement that Joe

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Biden had won, which the court
said deemed legal. And he is saying,

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none of that matters because he,
the president, has complete and total

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immunity for virtually anything he does as
president. And the Supreme Court came down

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and by the way lower courts had
said, he has no immunity, that

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he's like anybody else that could be
charged. And the president argued former president

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argued, I think legitimately argued.
That means any prosecutor can open up any

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investigation charge any president at any time
with miss conduct, even though it has

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never happened in the history of this
country. But we've never had a president

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like Donald Trump. So it boils
down to this, and that is that

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there is immunity given to the president
if during his presidency he has, within

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his official capacity, has done anything
that even remotely can be considered a criminal

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act. Jack Smith is arguing his
federal trial that Trump violated the law and

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is being charged criminally and wants to
go to trial on Trump's attempts to overturn

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a legal election. Trump argued,
it doesn't matter what I do. I

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have immunity. And this is one
of the issues that was arguing from the

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Supreme Court during the argument phase.
When Atlanta Kagan says that means anything and

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specific. Two things happened with sour
He his attorney. Now I'm going to

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get a little bit more into the
weeds. One is, yes, the

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president. The only thing that you
can do with the president is impeach and

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remove him from office and then after
that charge him. But he is immune.

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Well, what if he does this
a week before leaving office and there's

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no time for an impeachment hearing or
their or kicking him out of office.

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Does that mean he's never going to
be charged? And Sower said that's right,

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he could never be charged. And
she came up with, gee,

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what if he assassinates order the assassination
of arrival? Is he immune? And

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Sower said, yeah, basically he
is, which kind of floored everybody.

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Now, the other thing that sour
his attorney said, there is such thing

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as non official acts, even though
Trump himself argued there's nothing that's non official.

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No matter what he did, it's
all official, and even said,

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yeah, there might be some stuff
that's non official. And so what the

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court just did, Supreme Court just
did is say that a president has partial

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immunity, but has immunity for official
acts and then kicks it to the lower

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court and effectively says, you guys, figure out what's official and not official.

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That's not what the Supreme Court does. They only decide on broad strokes.

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And so now every time that there
is an allegation or a prosecutor charges

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a president after being president, because
they can't be charged during the presidency.

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Afterwards, charge for criminal act that
the president did, then he the president

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is liable for any prosecutor at any
time to charge, and now the former

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president has to defend. And Trump
further argues that stops a president from acting

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because of fear of being prosecuted.
You know, for example, Joe Biden

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orders arms being sent to Israel or
Ukraine. Well, it can be argued

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that that was a criminal act,
and then it goes to trial, and

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the trial determines, the court determines
that that is official. Prosecutor says,

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no, he's violated the law.
Well that has to be tried. Is

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it official or not official? And
here's Trump's argument, anything I do can

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be argued that it's not official,
or that I'm allowed. That should not

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be argued anything I do I have
immunity. So he of course is going

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to the furthest extent. But that's
this president. Can you imagine a prosecutor

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anywhere in the country charging a president
for anything dealing with foreign relations, anything

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dealing with ordering the army, anything
dealing with asking for arms, anything dealing

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with moving the air force around.
And Trump is saying that, yeah,

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there's a prosecutor that might be able
to do that, and therefore I have

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immunity. That's an official act.
But the problem is he goes even further.

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He says, trying to overturn an
election of which he deems illegal unconstitutional,

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I should have immunity from No other
president has ever tried this. By

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the way, no other president has
ever tried to overturn an election saying the

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election is illegal. It's a wild
case. You're going to see case after

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case while Trump is president. If
he wins again, you're going to see

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a lot of stuff because he's going
to do a lot of things that he's

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going to argue he is doing in
his official act. Here's one of the

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fears, as he has said,
he is going to arrest and prosecute every

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member of the July sixth committee.
I'm going to put them in jail.

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The investigation of the June of the
January sixth investigation. I'm putting those congress

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people in jail, and he's going
to argue that's an official act. I

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can have them arrested. I can
order the Department of Justice to try them,

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and that's official. Now, would
any other president ever do that?

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I can't imagine. Would Trump do
that? I guarantee he's going to do

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that. He has said he's going
to do that. Boy, what a

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decision by the court. What's official? What is an official act? That

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is the question. We'll be back
and I'm assuming we continue this or we're

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going to do wealthy Americans, or
we're going to do shark attacks, or

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we're going to do whatever the hell
we're going to do. This thing is

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blown out. Do they have a
case? Maybe an hour ago, Supreme

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Court just handed its decision on the
Trump immunity case, and we were awaiting

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this. I think is one of
the most important decisions the Court is going

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to hold in a very long time, and this has to do with presidential

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immunity. I've talked about it a
little bit about this in the last segment

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or two. Do they have a
case with Wayne? We're going to talk

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about this, Wayne being I would
not say an expert in federal or constitutional

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law, but certainly having dealt with
the criminal aspects in federal law for twenty

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eight years. And this is based
on a federal violation of law. Jack

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Smith, who is a special prosecutor, charge Donald Trump with violation of federal

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law interfering with an election and interfering
with the continuing business of Congress, that

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is, counting the votes and the
Electoral College having voted that o'biden is had

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won, and stopping the announcement of
Joe Biden as president. For some crazy

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reason, the Trump organization, somehow, and it made no sense, decided

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that if Mike Pence doesn't actually count
the votes and refuses to certify, the

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election is not legal. It's not
legitimate. And guess who stays president if

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the election is not legal? Why
Donald Trump stays president? And he argued

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for another election, I think somewhere
in the midst of all this, and

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if he lost that one, the
same thing, it would go through the

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courts and he would effectively stay president
for well years and years and years.

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That's what John Eastman said, Constitutional
attorney former Dean A. Chapman School of

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Law. That was his idea,
And so Jack Smith said, that's all

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crapola. He can't stop the election, and him trying to stop the election

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is a violation of federal law.
And Trump argued that he has immunity from

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being persecuted, well, certainly persecuted
the way he views it, but prosecuted

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by special counsel Jack Smith, federal
prosecutor. And the court just said,

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yep, the president has limited immunity. What does that mean. Well,

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if the president is engaging in official
acts, there is immunity. In unofficial

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acts, there is no immunity.
And the problem becomes, now who decides

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what's official and unofficial? Why the
courts do? And what the Supreme Court

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said is that you the courts get
to define official and non official, which

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means that every single case brought against
the president by any prosecutor has to now

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go to the court to determine officiality
or not, and then that is appealed

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and then it goes up. And
that's per incident. Now the reality is

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what and this is what Trump said. That means any prosecutor at any time

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could effectively hold the president hostage because
of fear that a decision would made would

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end up landing the president court to
determine whether it was an official or non

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official act. I can't imagine any
prosecutor arguing that whatever the pression, the

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pressure the president does is non official. And here is what the prosecutors in

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this case and the Jack Smith violation
of federal law prosecution said even if the

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president is immune, and this is
what he's going to argue, even the

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president is immune. Now it goes
to the lower court to determine is what

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he did official or not. That's
what's happening now. Of course, the

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trial will go on. We'll see
it in eight years unless Trump gets elected.

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Then he stops at cold he tells
the Justice Department to withdraw the case

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completely with prejudice, means the case
is over, or he simply pardons himself,

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which I don't think he's going to
do. I think he's going to

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just have the Justice Department drop the
case. So now the question is,

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is trying to overturn an election based
on what he says is a fraudulent election

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is at an official act? And
he's going to argue that it is,

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and that is going to be tried, and then that is going to be

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appealed. That's why this thing is
such a mess because the court blew this

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wide open to determine what's official and
not official. And we're going to go

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to Wayne, do they have a
case? In just a moment, bottom

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of the hour or till we get
off the air at nine, and Wayne

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and I going to discuss this.
And this is no fun, but I

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think it's limited just to Donald Trump. That's what I think is going to

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save the day. I can't imagine
any other president ever going this far or

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doing this and arguing that an election
was fraudulent when it wasn't, it was

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illegal when it wasn't. And I'm
bringing Wayne in, Wayne Resnik, who

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we always do, do they have
a case? And so I think we're

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going to talk about this one Wayne, because it's so important, and I

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want to have you bring in your
expertise in criminal justice cases because that's exactly

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what this is about. And so
number one surprised at all this came down,

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No, Because if you divorce this
case from who it's about, it's

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not that radical of a decision.
No, it makes all the sense in

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the world if you think about it. And that's exactly the point. You're

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right if you divorce this case,
because this really is a case excuse me

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about Donald Trump and what he did. There's been no other president in the

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history of the United States. There
will be no other president that will question

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an election that is legal, and
as a matter of fact, the security

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of this last election was the strongest
we've ever had in the history of this

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country. And because he lost,
he said it was fraudulent. So other

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presidents, I think would argue his
case. I'm arguing that what they do

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are official acts and can't be prosecuted. I think it would be hard to

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make an argument that you should be
able to criminally prosecute a president for There's

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three buckets that the Supreme Court made
in this case. Right. There's the

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content institutional powers that are exclusively those
of a president, for which now they're

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saying absolute immunity under no circumstances.
Could you ever criminally prosecute a president for

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those? Then the official acts,
those are the things that are are about

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things that he does not have exclusive
power about. The only things I can

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think of off the top of my
head is when he pardons the turkeys or

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when he I don't know, hosts
a state dinner. Those are official acts,

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but they're not his exclusive constitutional domain, and he has They said he

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has presumptive immunity, meaning maybe you
could prosecute a president criminally for an official

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act, but you would have to
clear a really high hurdle that by criminalizing

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what he did, you were not
unnecessarily intruding on the on the power of

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a president. Right on unofficial acts, there's no protection of any kind.

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Now, I even Sour when he
was arguing in front of the Supreme Court,

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agreed that there were acts that can
be considered non official. And he

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is arguing that trying to overturn an
election of which I think sixty three judges

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across the country upheld the election of
Joe Biden, that it wasn't fraudulent,

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that it was legitimate trying to overturn
those by making calls to for example,

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Raffensberger in Georgia saying find me votes, telling Mike Pence, do not count

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the votes, do not announce.
Well, then the argument of sending people

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over to the capitol, whether he
had I think he had influence, but

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I don't think he ordered the overrunning
of the capitol. But certainly trying to

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overturn the election, there is no
issue he did that he is arguing that

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it's an official act. Can you
see the saying yes, that's official.

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Well, this is where the Supreme
Court and most courts they like to rule

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and say here are the rules,
and then they don't tell you how the

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rules work, so you have to
figure out how the rules work. Is

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it within a president's official role to
try to make sure that elections are fair?

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Sure? Okay, So if he
says these are things to do to

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try to make sure the election was
fair, then why isn't it an official

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act? Argue that's true. But
let me extrapolate, and that is the

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election is unfair and the votes shouldn't
even be counted because we know they're unfair

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or they've been rigged, and stops
the vote counting because he says it is

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fraud done. Is that an official
act? Because he's arguing he was just

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upholding the constitution? Is that an
official act? Now you have to go

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to court and the court has to
decide. And do you think there's some

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crazy ass judge in the South that
would say it's totally official And then it

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goes up to the Appeals Court,
which is gonna, of course turn him

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down. But that's each allegation and
that's the problem I have. And you're

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right, this is only Donald Trump
who would do something insane like try to

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call a Secretary of State to say, don't count those votes, or find

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me other votes or come up with
some just based on John Eastman, constitutional

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lawyer, in quotes saying that,
my if Mike Pence doesn't announce that President

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Biden is the president, then Trump
stays the president basically forever. Who's gonna

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say that's an official act other than
a judge in the South. Well,

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you keep saying a judge South,
Then I'm thinking how many, Yeah,

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how many judges in the South might
you get to say to agree with him?

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This? Just what this does is
it creates the need to litigate every

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little thing he does. That's what
we've never had before with any other president.

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And it's not that the Supreme Court
said you can do whatever you want.

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That isn't what they said. They
said their rules about when you can

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criminally prosecute a president. The problem
is Donald Trump has a very broad view

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of what he's entitled to do.
And what happens is he does the thing

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and then there's somebody tries to prosecute
him for it, and then you go

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through now this process of trying to
analyze whether he can be prosecuted or not.

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Up three levels to the Supreme Court, down again, up again,

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down again. Oh yeah, it
just blows it wide open. I have

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a question to ask you when we
come back, and you can answer it.

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You know that. Also, the
argument of his prosecution is that the

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Department of Justice has been weaponized,
and you have officials a Department of Justice

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that are going after him specifically,
totally weaponized, except in the case of

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going after Hunter Biden and they got
a federal conviction, then it's not so

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much weaponization. When someone who's an
enemy of Donald Trump gets nailed by the

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same weaponized Department of Justice, that's
a little contradictory. I'd love to see

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the explanation on that one. In
the case of former President Trump, it

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is particularly i think appropriate because it
says an official act that a president does,

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the president is immune from prosecution.
And the argument is what is official

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And that's the issue that Wayne and
I were bringing up, because now any

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prosecution done by any prosecutor, the
president can argue it's an official act.

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By the way, only in the
world of Donald Trump. That's it It's

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never happened before where a president is
being prosecuted, even Nixon versus the US

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that was not a criminal prosecution.
They never got that far. It would

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have probably gone that far, but
gerald Ford stopped at cold so Wayne with

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his pardon. So Waine, I
need your opinion on this one. Number

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one, what is the offshoot.
Let's say that they go ahead and argue

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official non official act in the courts
and it is deemed non official if Trump

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wins the election, oh, even
before it goes beyond even before a jury

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verdict. If Trump wins the election, one of two things happened. One

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he pardons himself, which I don't
think it's going to happen. He won't

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have to bring that up. Or
two, he as head of the Department

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of Justice, as the head of
government, can order that the prosecution stop

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and orders that the case be dropped. Withdraws the case with prejudice, meaning

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done, it can never be brought
up again. So tell me about the

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possibility and the law on that one
dismisses the case with prejudice. Well that's

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let me let me. Let me
let me try to answer your question by

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asking you some questions. Because this
is largely in your wheelhouse. So would

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you say, ordering your your attorney
general to order whichever US attorney it is,

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to dismiss a case without prejudice?
Is that an official act that a

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president prejudice with prejudice with prejudice sorry, yeah, which means can be ever

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brought up again without prejudice, you
can refile it. Yeah. I would

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argue that's an official act. This
is what a president does. A president

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commutes, a president pardons. A
president can say I'm going to go forward.

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I disagree with my attorney general.
I do not want that case prosecuted.

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I think that would be considered an
official act. I buy that,

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all right, What do you think? Let me ask I think so let

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me ask you this though. Do
you think that that doing that, which

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is basically directing his underlings to do
something. Do you think that's part of

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the core constitutional powers that a president
has that Congress doesn't have. Yes.

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Yes, because that's part of the
executive branch, and it's something that the

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president does uniquely and without the influence
of any other branch. I could be

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turned. Well, the Supreme Court
can deem something unconstitutional all day long,

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because in reality, Supreme Court has
the ultimate power in deciding which way either

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branch of government goes. So yeah, now the question is Kenny pardon himself,

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And by the way, you can
pardon himself before it goes any place.

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Richard Nixon was pardoned by Gerald Ford
for any trial and was pardoned for

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anything he did, is currently doing
and I think even anticipation, anticipation wise,

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anything he does in relation to what
happened in Watergate, I think that's

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what happened if memory serves. Yeah, that's right. So so first of

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all, giving your answers, if
he orders the cases to be dismissed with

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prejudice against him, he has absolute
immunity and you cannot criminally prosecute him for

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anything for doing that. He's now
protected based on this decision that came down

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today. Now, trying to overturn
an election that the courts have deemed is

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a legitimate election, is that official? And I'm going to argue that is

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not. This gets into and this
is going to come up now, especially

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I think with Donald Trump, if
he's reelected, it comes down to semantics.

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You say, trying to overthrow an
election. Other people will say trying

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to protect the integrity of an election. That was stolen through criminal behavior on

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the part of the other side.
Right. Let me throw this at you,

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though, which I think makes my
argument a little bit stronger, And

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that is, it's not an argument
one side or the other. It's an

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argument that Trump is making, which
has been turned down by sixty three judges

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in federal in appeals court. It's
I don't know even how many jurisdictions.

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That's harder to argue that I'm overturning
an election that was fraudulent. Yes,

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but see, are you separating the
court actions that he took from this extra

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judicial stuff he did, like calling
calling the guy in Georgia and the fake

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electors and those things. See,
I don't think you could ever Would you

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want to ever prosecute a president prosecute
for filing a case in court about something,

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Yeah, if it is frivolous,
if it has to do with trying

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to cover up what every court has
said is an act by omission, a

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criminal act. Overturning an election,
a federal election is a crime in of

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itself, and it doesn't matter who
does it. I think that's uh,

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the That's how I would interpret all
of those decisions. Uh, the District

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Court judges as well as the Appeals
Court. So we could go on and

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on with this. This doesn't stop, does it wane? Well, this

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decision has not made anything easier.
No, no, it hasn't uncomplicated anything.

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Let me just ask you this one
big major question. Bottom line,

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This decision total win for Trump,
partial win for Trump, partial win.

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But being Donald Trump individually, it's
a total win in terms of the Constitution

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and the president, what the president's
power has, it's a partial win.

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They parsed it, and I think
they were right. The problem is they

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went beyond what Donald Trump did.
They took the big picture, and with

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Donald Trump, you cannot take the
big picture. It's just impossible. All

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right, Wayne, Thanks, We'll
talk again next Monday and we'll get into

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some cases. Do they have a
case in the meantime, Wow, we're

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at the end. And me Well, tomorrow morning five am. Heather Brooker

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comes in at five o'clock with wake
up call, and Neil and I come

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00:27:47.920 --> 00:27:53.519
aboard at six And as I always
say, Kono and Ann never leave there

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there twenty four hours a day.
This is KFI Am six forty live everywhere

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on the iHeartRadio app. You've been
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00:28:03.559 --> 00:28:07.519
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