Donald Trump's Lawyers Offer The Dumbest Argument Yet To Conceal His January 6th Records

Donald Trump and his legal team are clearly getting desperate, and their latest filing shows it. His lawyers are now trying to argue that no one has the right to extinguish the "executive privilege" claim of a former president, and that if the court allows this to happen, it will open up all former presidents to nonstop Congressional subpoenas. The biggest question is why that would even be a problem? If there's a legitimate need for materials, Congress should have the right to subpoena anyone they need. Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins explains what this latest court filing means.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Donald Trump's lawyers filed a 68 page brief this week in court, as they continue the appeals process for judge Tanya Chutkan's ruling last week, where she said that presidents are not Kings and plaintiff is not the president, effectively ending his claim of executive privilege. Well, Trump's lawyers in their new brief this week said that you can't do that because no sitting president has the authority to take away executive privilege from any former living president. I like how they had to add the caveat living. So, you know, if Warren Harding claimed executive privilege, you're totally okay to go ahead and, you know, release his stuff. But no, if they're alive, can't do it. Which is pretty much the exact opposite of what judge Chutkan said. Judge Chutkan said only the sitting president can make that distinction. Now the former presidents can claim it all day long, but the current sitting president has no constitutional duty to recognize their claims of executive privilege. But Trump's lawyers say this sets a dangerous precedent. It could lead to future administrations targeting past administrations.

And to be honest, that kind of goes along with my little theory here that I've said multiple times, that there seems to be this unspoken rule among presidents that we're just not going to investigate you. We're not going to come after you. We know you did some bad things here and there, but I'm not going to come after you just like my predecessor's not going to come after me. And that seems to be the way things work. You know, maybe it's not even a real agreement. Maybe it's just a wink and a nod understanding, right? Well, Biden's kind of put an end to that and I think that's what Donald Trump is so about because Biden says I'm not going to claim executive privilege over these documents that the January 6th committee wants. And Trump's lawyers say, oh my God, this could be the end of democracy as we know it, as Congress can then just harass former president, harass is the word they used, harass them and make them turn over everything.

Have you thought about the flip side of that? Have you thought about what your actual argument would do here in the United States? It would make presidents King. It would allow them no matter how long ago they left office to claim executive privilege over anything they absolutely wanted to. No future president could undo that, of course, until they die, as you say in your brief. But then we create the secret cabal of former presidents who can hide whatever the hell they want, even though they no longer have any other powers, that should not be able to exist. But that's what Trump's lawyers want to happen here in the United States. I do not think their legal argument is sound, whatsoever. I think it's ridiculous. I think judge Chutkan's ruling was absolutely sound and I think it's going to be hard to undo that. She mentioned the constitutionality of it. She mentioned that fact that a former president has no power. And I have little reason to believe that these idiotic arguments from Donald Trump's lawyers are going to sway any of the judges on that appellate court.