Jamie Raskin warns of political assassinations

Congressional Democrats have finally admitted why they are so scared of Donald Trump — they think he’s out to kill them. January 6 was just a preview to a possible round of sweeping political assassinations.

“Donald Trump and his lawyers essentially asserted that the president has the right to assassinate people, to kill people without any prospect of prosecution unless they’re first impeached by the House and convicted in the Senate,” Representative Jamie Raskin said on CNN last Tuesday after Trump’s DC circuit Court of Appeals appearance.

Raskin was referring to an argument made by Trump’s lawyer John Sauer that the former president is immune to criminal persecution for official acts taken while in office. The argument led Judge Florence Pan to pose a hypothetical: whether a president who ordered Seal Team Six to assassinate a political rival could be criminal prosecuted. With little goading, Sauer responded only “if he were impeached and convicted first.”

According to Raskin, Sauer’s logic meant that the former president could have avoided ever facing legal repercussions as long as he murders his opposition in House of Representatives and the Senate before they could vote to impeach or convict him. 

“And of course, as a member of Congress, my first thought was, well, then if the president is going to order out for the assassination of his political rivals, and say there’s a narrow margin in the Senate of a two or three vote in the opposition party, what’s to keep him from murdering members of the Senate to make sure that he doesn’t get convicted there in order to deny a two-thirds majority,” Raskin said.  

Cockburn wonders what slight Raskin committed against Trump that his first thought was assassination. Would Trump really act so severely against the Maryland congressman for his role as impeachment manager, or responsibilities on the January 6 Committee?