This is the Libertarian Podcast from the Hoover Institution. I'm your host Tom Church and I'm welcoming back to 2024 the Libertarian Professor Richard Epstein. Richard is the Peter and

Kirsten Bedford senior fellow here at the Hoover Institution. He's the Lawrence A Tish Professor of Law at

NYU and he also happens to be a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago.

Richard today we're covering presidential immunity and some questions I've got for you about the 14th amendment.

So first, let's start with former President Donald Trump, who was in front of an appeals court

that was considering whether he's immune from prosecution regarding the federal charges against

him for, as the accusation goes, plotting to overturn the 2020 election.

It's an argument that the lower court did not buy and ultimately a question I believe is going to come up before the Supreme Court.

So Richard, I want to ask you about something specific that was sitting president has immunity from all crimes.

The exact exchange was, I guess the question was, could a president, a sitting president,

order Seal Team 6 to order, to eliminate a political rival and if so as in eliminate as in

kill a political rival and if he wasn't impeached could he be convicted and

his counsel said no you need to be the Constitution says you need to

be impeached and convicted first and then you could actually go through criminal

proceedings but that means that their answer is no as of sitting president under any and I say air quotes

official duties you were immune from political ordering murder right so do you believe that? I mean, take me through that. Well, it turns out the whole question

underbraised by this hypothetical is extremely difficult to answer. It is surely the case that what the president does when he orders the murder

by the seal team of his political rival is going to be an impeachable offense and that would

happen. Somebody could say, hey, it's going to happen immediately and it's going to be a

sufficient defense to this thing so we really don't have to worry about it. But the judge essentially

said, let's assume contrary to all political expectations, that he's not going to be in

peace can he still say in office and the Trump people say the president has

...