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Amid Thursday’s integral arguments at the U.S. Supreme Court centered on presidential immunity, President Donald Trump has issued a solemn warning on what the potential eradication of the longstanding shield of presidential immunity could mean to all presidents before and after 2024.
“WITHOUT PRESIDENTIAL IMMUNITY, IT WOULD BE IMPOSSIBLE FOR A PRESIDENT TO PROPERLY FUNCTION, PUTTING THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA IN GREAT AND EVERLASTING DANGER!” he wrote on Truth Social.
He argued that without presidential immunity, the Executive Office would “lose its power and prestige” and warned that it would be “consumed by the other Branches of Government.”
Thursday’s arguments at the Supreme Court were tense as Trump attorney John Sauer defended the historical precedent and imperative function of presidential immunity, which has long protected acting presidents from being criminally prosecuted by political opponents or blackmailed while in office.
Sauer opened his arguments by stating, “Prosecuting the president for his official acts is an innovation with no foothold in history or tradition and incompatible with our constitutional structure.”
Trump himself has robustly asserted that without presidential immunity as a shield of protection around the Oval Office, any president could be easily and reasonably extorted or blackmailed into making decisions or taking actions.
He explained, “If a President does not have Immunity, the Opposing Party, during his/her term in Office, can extort and blackmail the President by saying that, ‘if you don’t give us everything we want, we will Indict you for things you did while in Office,’ even if everything done was totally Legal and Appropriate.”
Trump insisted that this would signal “the end of the Presidency, and our Country, as we know it, and is just one of the many Traps there would be for a President without Presidential Immunity. Obama, Bush, and soon, Crooked Joe Biden, would all be in BIG TROUBLE.”
