Former Attorney General Eric Holder said Wednesday he is concerned that the Supreme Court will come to a “dangerous” conclusion on former President Trump’s claim of presidential immunity, partly because it has taken time for the justices to reveal their decision.
Trump has made the immunity claim on charges related to the federal cases he faces on storing classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida and related to the 2020 election and the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.
A decision from the Supreme Court is expected before the end of June.
In an interview on MSNBC’s “Deadline: White House” with host Nicolle Wallace, the former attorney general to President Obama suggested some justices could argue Trump may violate criminal law if he did so in his official role as president.
“The notion, for instance, that apparently some justices are fooling around with it, well, if the president violated the criminal law, but was doing so in his official capacity, there may be some basis to say that that’s OK,” Holder said. “We need to step back, and think about that.
“You know, wait a minute, a president can violate the American criminal law, if he or she is doing something in their official capacity. That is an absurd and dangerous conclusion,” Holder said. “And I’m worried, given the length of time that it has taken for the Supreme Court to decide this case, that something along those lines might come out of the Supreme Court.”
Holder also said that “anything less than a decision by the Supreme Court that says, ‘A president should be held to the laws, just like any other American citizen should be,’ anything other than that is absurd.”
Trump and his attorneys have claimed that ex-presidents have criminal immunity for official acts.
The next decision dates for the Supreme Court are Thursday and Friday, but it is unclear what decisions they will drop on those days.
Some observers and Trump critics do not think the court will find Trump has immunity.
Conservative attorney and common Trump critic George Conway said last week on CNN that he believes Trump will “lose big” in the case.
“I do trust the court on this. I think … Donald Trump is going to lose. I think he’s going to lose big,” Conway said. “I think there may be a few wrinkles in the opinion that may add a few steps to the process, but at the end of the day, I don’t think his argument is going to fly.”
