The New York Police Department (NYPD) and Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) contradicted claims made by President Trump’s lawyer that the commander in chief could not be prosecuted even if he shot someone on Fifth Avenue.
“If anybody shoots someone, they get arrested. I don’t care if they’re the president of the United States or anybody else,” de Blasio told reporters during a Thursday press conference, as reported by Politico. “If you shoot someone, you should get arrested, and we would arrest him.”
NYPD First Deputy Commissioner Ben Tucker agreed, saying that Trump would be arrested for the hypothetical shooting.{mosads}
Trump’s personal attorney William Consovoy made the argument in a federal appeals court on Wednesday trying to block a Manhattan district attorney subpoena seeking Trump’s tax returns and financial records from his accounting firm.
The president’s legal team has argued that he has blanket immunity from criminal prosecution and even investigation while in office.
Judge Denny Chin referenced Trump’s infamous declaration on the 2016 campaign trail that he could “stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot someone” without losing supporters, asking Consovoy how that scenario would work under the president’s claims of immunity.
“What’s your view on the ‘Fifth Avenue’ example?” Chin asked. “Local authorities couldn’t investigate, couldn’t do anything about it?”
“Nothing could be done, that’s your position?” he added.
“That is correct,” Consovoy responded.
De Blasio, who dropped out of the Democratic presidential contest last month, knocked the president’s counsel.
“Anyone who calls themselves a lawyer who would say that should not be a lawyer — let’s start with that,” the mayor said. “If you shoot someone, that’s a crime, and no one is above the law. He would be arrested, period.”
Judge Victor Marrero, a federal district court judge in New York appointed by former President Clinton, earlier this month dismissed the president’s lawsuit that sought to block enforcement of the Manhattan district attorney’s office’s subpoena for his records from accounting firm Mazars USA. The president’s lawyers quickly appealed the decision.
The district attorney’s office is seeking the records as part of a grand jury investigation into payments made ahead of the 2016 presidential election to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, women who allege that they had affairs with Trump. Trump has denied the affairs.