One of the president's top selling points
during the campaign was that, as a man of the people,
he was gonna make sure that the elites would be treated
exactly like everybody else. That's what Trump said.
Especially when it came to the law.
No one will be above the law in a Trump administration.
We will have one set of rules for everyone.
In Hillary Clinton's world,
we have one set of rules for her,
and another set of rules for everybody else.
I will never lie to you.
I will never put any other interests before you.
And I will never, ever stop fighting for you.
(applause and cheering)
That was so romantic.
It felt like he was about to start singing "I Swear."
"By the moon and the stars... in the sky."
But that's one of the things
that Trump supporters loved about him.
Unlike Crooked Hillary and black Barack Obama,
Trump did not think that anyone was above the law,
including himself, right? That's what he said.
But in the past few months,
Mueller's investigation has started closing in on Trump
like a Fortnite storm. And because of that,
Trump and his team have started updating
his presidency's terms and conditions.
A memo from President Trump's lawyers
to special counsel Robert Mueller says flat-out
that a president cannot obstruct justice
because he has authority over all federal investigations.
What they argue in this memo is
that the president of the United States,
because he's the chief law enforcement officer,
can terminate any federal investigation
at any time for any reason.
Yeah, you heard right.
Trump's lawyers are arguing that, as president,
Trump has the power to kill all investigations
into himself for any reason.
Essentially, that the president is above the law,
which makes sense.
I mean we all remember when the Founders were like,
"You know what America needs? A king."
Yeah. That's...
That is what they said, right? I couldn't concentrate
'cause of all their rapping. It threw me off.
So, uh, anyway, according to Donald Trump's legal team,
the president, by definition, cannot obstruct justice.
But even if it ever turned out that he did obstruct justice,
they also say that the president can't be charged with a crime.
WOMAN: Mr. Trump's attorney Rudy Giuliani
telling the Huffington Post,
it's impossible to indict a sitting president,
no matter the offense, claiming,
"If he shot James Comey, he'd be impeached the next day.
"Impeach him, and then you can do
whatever you want to do to him."
Okay, okay. So the president can't be criminally charged,
he can only be impeached by Congress.
Now, I understand that as a legal argument,
but I do think it's a little weird
that out of all the examples they could have picked,
they went with murdering James Comey.
It almost makes me feel like
they've been thinking about this.
Yeah, I'm just saying, James Comey,
if you get invited to a party and Trump starts dancing,
you should run, that's what you should do. Run.
All right, but let's... let's make sure
we're on the same page here.
So, Trump's legal team says
the president can't obstruct justice,
but even if he did obstruct justice,
he can't be indicted, and even if somehow he is indicted,
they've got a plan for that, too.
NEWSWOMAN: Mr. Trump's lawyers, at the time,
argued the president cannot be subpoenaed
or forced to testify under oath.
The idea is you can't, um, you can't interfere with him,
uh, either from... in point of view of indictment
or-or questioning-- you can't interfere
with the president's, uh, time, his effort, his concentration.
This isn't just theoretical. He's not sitting up there,
you know, uh, playing tiddlywinks.
He's involved in four or five
unbelievably historic negotiations right now.
Uh, I'm sorry, wait, wha...?
Trump is too busy to testify?
Get the (bleep) out of here, man.
No, no, no, no. You might be able
to make that case for other presidents, but Trump?
The dude has spent 600 days of his 500 days playing golf.
Are you serious? His desk is so empty,
it looks like no one's invented paper yet.
He's fake-driven two trucks. Two!
That man is busy?
The man live-tweets Fox News's Jesse Watters.
And look, I can understand live-tweeting Hannity.
Okay, fine. But if you have time to live-tweet Jesse Watters,
you have time to testify, okay?
Like, Trump has so much time,
he could help me move, if I was moving. He could. Yeah.
He has so much time, he could pick me up at the airport.
And not just, like, swing by-- he could park
and meet me at arrivals.
That's how much time he has.
Don't tell me he doesn't have time.
-He has the time. -(cheering, applause, whistling)
But you... you've got to appreciate
how far Trump has come from the campaign.
From "No one is above the law"
to "I don't have time to testify 'cause I got that thing
that I'm doing."
And we haven't even reached the best part yet.
Because it turns out
even if Trump could be charged with obstruction
and got indicted and somehow found the time
in his calendar to testify, according to Trump,
he's got a cheat code.
NEWSWOMAN: President Trump weighing in this morning
on the debate, tweeting...
"Yeah, why would I do that? Why?"
Trump's claiming the right to let himself off the hook
for any crime at any time.
Yeah. Something tells me that Trump wants the same rules
for everyone except himself.
Which, even if it's right legally,
doesn't sound like a democracy to me, right?
I mean, a president shouldn't be able to pardon themselves.
It's like sneezing and then saying "bless you" to yourself.
It's not right.
You can do it, but it's not right.
Yeah. You wait for someone else to say it or you die.
That's how it works.
And I know at this moment Trump is gonna say, "Oh, no, no,
"I'm not pardoning myself, but, you know,
that's not my plan, I'm just putting it out there,"
but that's not Trump works-- come on, we all know.
I know that as soon as someone brings up prison
and Trump realizes that he's gonna have to spend his days
reading and working out, he's gonna be like, "Pardon.
I'm using my pardon, folks. I'm using it all."