Former Judge Andrew Napolitano told Newsmax on Thursday that the Supreme Court's hearing on presidential immunity could affect the office of president "for all time because this issue has never been resolved."
The Supreme Court on Thursday finished hearing oral arguments over whether former President Donald Trump can claim immunity from prosecution over alleged crimes committed while he was in office.
In an interview with "Newsline," Napolitano addressed the 1982 Supreme Court decision in the case Nixon v. Fitzgerald, which is part of the foundation for Trump's legal argument for presidential immunity.
Napolitano noted that the 1982 decision in that case, in which the high court ruled that the president is immune to civil litigation for actions taken while in office, involved a civil lawsuit against the president — and "we're not talking about a lawsuit" against Trump, "we are talking about a criminal prosecution."
Napolitano went on to say that "the court's oral arguments came down to" the question of whether Trump's actions "on Jan. 6 and the final days and weeks leading up to it [were] official, core functions of the presidency or were they personal acts? Were they intended to protect the presidency and further democracy or were they intended for some personal gain?"
He continued, "There's no real dispute ... that if they were core presidential acts he can't be prosecuted for them. But if they were acts intended for personal gain or some venal or inappropriate purpose, he can be prosecuted."
Napolitano went on to predict that the high court would "send the case back to trial court with specific instructions" for a jury to decide if Trump's actions were official acts or unofficial and whether those actions "constituted a crime."
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