Trump flack and candidate for Attorney General in Missouri wants us to believe that their attempt to steal the election with the fake slate of electors was somehow an "official act of the presidency."
July 2, 2024

Trump flack and candidate for Attorney General in Missouri wants us to believe that their attempt to steal the election with the fake slate of electors was somehow an "official act of the presidency." CNN's Kaitlan Collins did a decent job pushing back at least some of Scharf's nonsense. I'd have liked to see her ask him more specifics on why the majority of what we've seen Trump charged with in any of these cases could ever be considered "official acts.

Here's how the exchange started with Scharf pretending anything Trump posted to Twitter while he was president should also be considered an "official act" and should not have been allowed to be used as evidence at any of his trials.

COLLINS: You know, for for what's happening tonight with this news and Trump's legal team trying to overturn that conviction, you're not representing him in that case, but you were there in the courtroom for parts of that that trial as it was going on. Does anything in the New York case pass the test in your view that the Supreme Court established today in this ruling?

SCHARF: Yeah, absolutely, Kaitlan. The Supreme Court was very clear that for acts that fall within the outer perimeter of the president's official responsibilities, acts that are presumptively immune from prosecution, that evidence of those acts cannot be used in to try essentially private act.

So what we have in New York is a situation where a substantial number of official acts of the presidency, things that we believe are official acts, were used as evidence to support the charges in that New York trial.

We believe that that corrupts that trial, that that indicates that that jury verdict needs to be overturned, and at the very least, we deserve a new trial where those immune acts will not come into evidence as the Supreme Court dictated today.

COLLINS: Which which acts are you arguing that were presented in the trial or official acts?

SCHARF: So one example would be communications made through official White House communications channels. Those would be things that we believe based on the Supreme Court's opinion today fall neatly within the outer perimeter of a president's official responsibilities and duties.

So certainly with respect to those sorts of official communications from the White House that were entered into evidence in that New York trial, that would be the sort of thing that would run afoul of the Supreme Court's opinion today.

COLLINS: So like testimony from Hope Hicks or what exactly do you mean?

SCHARF: No, I mean there were for example tweets from President Trump's official Twitter account that were entered into evidence of trial. President Trump's Twitter account has been held by numerous courts to be during his time as president to be an official communications instrumentality of the White House. So those sorts of things would be official acts under the Supreme Court's ruling today, and therefore they were not admissible as evidence in that New York trial.

COLLINS: Do you think it'll actually warrant a new trial, though, in New York?

SCHARF: I think it certainly should. I think it just adds to the vast number of irregularities and unconstitutional aspects of that trial that took place in New York.

We're obviously looking forward to vigorously challenging that trial verdict on numerous grounds. This is just another ground that I think adds to the clamor in terms of overturning that verdict.

So Scharf wants to argue that Trump's stream of consciousness on social media is an "official act" because he used it as a form of communication while he was in the White House. Good luck with that one buddy.

He gives the game away with the exchange that followed, where he basically admits that this is all about stalling and them having the ability to appeal these trials over and over again over which acts actually are immune from prosecution.

This was also the portion of the interview where Scharf tried to claim that there was nothing illegal about the fake electors scheme.

COLLINS: I'm a little skeptical, but we'll see what the judge decides here. We haven't seen any response from him or from the DA's office. But on this case itself, and on the January 6th case here in Washington, which is what this immunity ruling came from, Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote that if the lower judge rules against you on this question of what's official and what's not official, that Trump must stand trial.

I mean, do you acknowledge that there is still a chance he does have a trial here for the January 6th election interference case?

SCHARF: Well, first of all, I would note that Justice Barrett's opinion is a concurrence and it's not controlling.

I think the majority opinion authored by Chief Justice Roberts very clearly sets out the path ahead. This case is going to be remanded handed back to the district court. The district court is going to have to determine which of the acts underlying the indictment or immune and which are not immune. And then we'll proceed from there.

Obviously, any immunity decision made by the district court we would have the ability to appeal on an interlocutory basis, again, up to the DC Circuit and potentially to the Supreme Court as well.

In terms of your core question about the trial timeline, I think at the very least, we're looking at a long road ahead before this case could go to trial, which I think is appropriate given the very serious constitutional issues that this first ever prosecution of a former president presents here.

COLLINS: Yeah, but you you have conceded here the last time that you and I spoke in April and John Sauer, who was arguing this before the Supreme Court, that some of what's alleged would be considered a private act. So that would mean that at least part of this case from Jack Smith would go to court based on what you have said before right?

SCHARF: We've admitted consistently that there are acts alleged in the indictment that would constitute private conduct. But we believe that if the official conduct, the immune acts in the indictment are stripped away, that Jack Smith doesn't have a case, that this case should be dismissed on that basis.

I don't think there's sufficient private private conduct here to support the indictment, to support the ongoing prosecution, and that is going to be litigated in front of the district court now.

COLLINS: Even just the false lots of electors, you don't think that would constitute enough for a trial?

SCHARF: Well, we would say alternate slates of electors, and as we argued before, the Supreme Court alternate slates of electors have been a method used by previous presidents that most notably Ulysses S. Grant, to ensure the integrity the prior elections.

So we believe the assembly of those alternate slate of electors was an official act of the presidency. That's what we argued before the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has reserved that issue for determination by the district court, and we'll see how arguments fall in front of the district court.

COLLINS: Yeah. We've walked through those historical references here before. None of them compared to what we saw in 2020 with the fake slates of electors, but Will Scharf great to have your reaction to this. Thank you for joining us tonight.

SCHARF: I would disagree with that, Kaitlan , but great to be with you. Thank you.

COLLINS: That does not surprise me at all.

Xitter wasn't kind to Scharf for this nonsense:

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