Neal Katyal Deems Trump’s Legal Arguments ‘A Recipe for Disaster’

Former Acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal laid out the sheer audacity of former President Donald Trump’s “seven-fold” argument for why he should not be prosecuted. The breakdown prompted MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell to make a crack about how “unreasonable” it sounds.

On Thursday, Manhattan Judge Juan Merchan rejected a motion from Trump’s attorneys to delay the start of his trial in New York, where the ex-president faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to cover up hush money payments ahead of the 2016 presidential election. Trump is also under indictment in Georgia for trying to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state, in federal court in Washington, D.C. for trying to overturn the election in multiple states, and in federal court in Florida for retaining government documents upon leaving office.

Trump has claimed the prosecutions are politically motivated and has pleaded not guilty to all counts.

“A former president is facing a criminal trial,” Katyal observed on Thursday’s edition of The Last Word. “It’s going to begin soon, Lawrence, on March 25th. Just to understand how significant this is, Lawrence, just review the bidding:

Katyal then launched into a review of Trump’s evolving arguments for why he should not be prosecuted and – in one case – convicted in his 2021 impeachment trial in the U.S. Senate:

First, before Donald Trump was president, he lied and hid his crimes, so he couldn’t be indicted then. And those crimes included, as you just showed on the screen, trying to lie to hide some stuff so that he could win an election.

Second, he then becomes president and says he can’t be indicted for his past crimes while he is a sitting president in office.

Third, he then commits more crimes in office… The Mueller Report lists 10 of them. And he says, “Hey, you can’t prosecute me for my crimes while I’m a sitting president.”

Fourth, he then gets voted out of office and he commits crimes to try and stay in office. And he says, “I can’t be prosecuted while I’m president.”

So then, fifth, they try and impeach him and he gets impeached by the House of Representatives. And then he says he can be convicted because the remedy is actually to prosecute him after he leaves office. He shouldn’t be impeached.

Then, sixth, he leaves office and he’s prosecuted. And he says, “I can’t be prosecuted because I was president at the time and I’m absolutely immune for acts I took while I was president of the time.

And then, seventh, finally, for acts for when he wasn’t president, he’s now saying he can’t be prosecuted for those either… because he’s running for president again and is a presidential candidate.

Katyal then marveled at the boldness of Trump’s legal contentions.

“Altogether, chutzpah doesn’t begin to describe these claims,” he said. “These are claims that the guy can’t see straight. I mean, what constitution on Earth would permit that seven-fold kind of argument for absolute impunity? It’s a recipe for disaster.”

“Well, gee, Neal, when you put it that way, it sounds kind of unreasonable,” O’Donnell joked.

Watch above via MSNBC.