A federal judge’s sensational line of questions in former President Donald Trump’s immunity case, now before the Supreme Court, came under fire today from three former military leaders who said “anti-Trump hysteria” has taken over the judicial system and media.
The brief supporting Trump said that U.S. Appeals Judge Florence Pan insulted the military and the former president when she asked hypothetically about Trump ordering SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a political rival.
Pressured for a quick yes or no by Pan, appointed by President Joe Biden, Trump’s lawyer John Sauer stuck with his belief that a president could face criminal prosecution only after being impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate.
The liberal media turned the judge’s question and Sauer’s response into headlines and stories suggesting that Trump’s team made the case that he could assassinate rivals and get away with it.
Judge Pan: Could a president who ordered SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a political rival, who was not impeached, would he be subject to a criminal prosecution?
John Sauer: If he were impeached and convicted first.
Pan: So, your answer is no?
Sauer: My answer is qualified yes. pic.twitter.com/cAiunKxOwl
— CSPAN (@cspan) January 9, 2024
The word game was one of the latest where Trump foes and the media have been hit for distortions. Over the weekend, for example, the former president said that if Biden is reelected, China would continue to pour cheap cars into America, creating an economic “bloodbath,” a term often used by media and politicians to describe economic fears.
The media, however, took the comments out of context to suggest that Trump would orchestrate a bloodbath of his foes if he doesn’t win.
In their amicus brief with the United States Supreme Court filed by America First Policy Institute, former Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie, retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, and retired Lt. Gen. William Gerald “Jerry” Boykin blasted the question as irrelevant and insulting.
Wilkie said, “Anti-Trump hysteria has now led some in the media to question the patriotism of the United States soldier. The notion that soldiers under oath to the Constitution would follow an illegal order to kill American citizens is both absurd and an insult to the professionalism of those upon whose shoulders our liberty rests.”
Kellogg, a former Trump national security adviser, said, “my time with President Trump allows me to state without equivocation, he would never issue or consider such an action.”
Boykin, who commanded the Army Delta Force, added, “In my 36 years of military service, much of which was in combat zones, I cannot identify a single soldier who would be willing to follow an illegal order to kill the commander in chief or any other politician. Illegal orders cannot be executed without severe penalties for the service member that would be willing to do that. We need to think critically about how to change the image of our military with the American public.”
The brief states that most in the military would brush any assassination order aside. They did note one exception, the “My Lai Massacre.”
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In February, the appeals court ruled that Trump is not immune from prosecution and the Trump team appealed to the Supreme Court.
In its brief, America First Policy Institute hoped to make clear that the Trump team wasn’t agreeing with Pan’s question and that the case should be tossed if the Supreme Court believed that it influenced the lower court’s action.
“A president cannot order an elite military unit to kill a political rival, and the members of the military are required not to carry out such an unlawful order; it would be a crime to do so. To the extent that the judgment of the Court of Appeals was based on a contrary understanding, the judgment should be vacated or reversed,” the brief concluded.