High-profile Trump critic and conservative attorney George Conway said he believes the rejection of former President Trump’s immunity claims by a federal appeals court panel is masterful and that there is no way for Trump’s team to argue around it.
“It was masterful because it combines so many elements that combine constitutional text, judicial precedent, history and just sheer logic and the party’s own concessions, Trump’s own concessions, to make just an absolutely cohesive whole opinion that … just inexorably leads you to the conclusion that he is not immune,” Conway told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on Tuesday.
A three-judge panel upheld a lower court ruling Tuesday that found that Trump is not immune from prosecution as a former president, blocking his efforts to throw out his election interference case.
The ruling’s design forces Trump to file an emergency appeal with the Supreme Court by Feb. 12 if he wants to keep the trial on hold ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
It is unclear whether the Supreme Court would agree to hear an appeal of the appeals court’s panel ruling, though it will hear oral arguments Thursday on another legal issue confronting Trump: whether he can be disqualified from the ballot under the 14th Amendment’s insurrection clause.
Conway argues that the appeals court ruling does not require further review because the opinion “is so good and so clear, so comprehensive” that there is nothing for Trump’s team to attack. He added that he doesn’t see how the Supreme Court could write a better opinion.
“And as a result, I don’t think it’s worth the court’s time to deal with it at this point,” Conway said. “If Trump is convicted, which I think he will be, they can actually review this after his conviction. And meanwhile, the Supreme Court already has its hands full.”
Conway, who wrote an op-ed in The Atlantic about the ruling, said the Tuesday decision by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals “methodically, systematically dismantled” any argument that Trump could make.
“And there’s just nothing left for the Supreme Court to clean up. And I think if I’m sitting on the Supreme Court, I’m thinking this is just fine,” he said.
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