While the Supreme Court's presidential immunity ruling has everyone in a panic right now, Lawrence O'Donnell of MSNBC (who, by the way, is one of the very few mainstream media reporters I have sympathy for) highlighted something important about the entire ruling that a lot of people, including here on Daily Kos, might be missing. It is not pretty. It is one that is bound to be downright damning for the Former Guy. Remember in 2016 when Hillary Clinton's alleged "email scandal" broke out a few weeks before the election, which cost her the presidency? This one thing that O'Donnell pointed out about the ruling could have the same effect on Number 45's chances of winning in November.
Right now, you would think Trump is celebrating the ruling, but in reality, he really should not be, because the immunity portion of the ruling was one small(er) thing of an even bigger picture. O'Donnell explains the "very bad news" for Trump in this YouTube video, which has been viewed more than 2.1 million times and has been upvoted more than 44,000 times since it was posted on Monday, possibly making it one of the most viewed and most liked videos on the outlet's channel. (Skip ahead to 6:40 to hear O'Donnell's words. He speaks for approximately two full minutes.)
Below is a transcript of what O'Donnell said.
"So, the very bad news for Donald Trump in this decision today, and for candidate Trump...very very bad...is that Mike Pence is gonna walk into a federal courtroom, raise his right hand, take an oath to tell the truth, and testify against Donald Trump in this case in September. It's going to happen much faster [inaudible]."
"So what this is...what this is is we've created an absolute immunity on one paragraph of the indictment...exac...applying to exactly one paragraph of the indictment. All of the rest of the indictment goes back to Judge Chutkin's courtroom, and she schedules this. This Supreme Court has ordered her to have a hearing about the evidence in the case to determine whether the act in question is an official act, whether it might have some kind of protection or not, and that's for everything in the case except for one conversation that he had with the acting attorney general. So what, so what you're looking at here is...uh...basically there'll be some briefs on each side, and then the judge will schedule a day, and say okay, we start today...uh...Mr. Smith, who's your first witness, and it's exactly like a prosecution. And for Ja...what Jack Smith's gonna have to do, an...and sometimes in pre-trial evidentiary stuff prosecutors don't want to turn over all their cards, he's gonna have to turn over every single one of them, because the Supreme Court has said to him in effect, we need to see every single one of your cards. So every witness he has, he's gonna bring into that...that courtroom, they're all gonna be under oath, and the defense is gonna be able to cross-examine them, the defense probably won't bring in any witnesses at all, but you're gonna see this incredible January 6th hearing on steroids, possibly for six, eight weeks. September, October maybe."
-Lawrence O'Donnell, MSNBC, 07/01/2024