John Oliver Says Trump Can Be Prosecuted on Criminal Charges as Sure as Natasha Lyonne Should Play “the Next Batman”

John Oliver has some advice for the Supreme Court.

On HBO’s Last Week Tonight on Sunday, Oliver noted the court’s move last week to decide whether former President Donald Trump has presidential immunity against being prosecuted on charges he interfered with the 2020 election.

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Oliver played a clip from an ABC News report in which the reporter noted that “the court [is] now taking on a monumental unanswered question: Can a former president be criminally prosecuted for actions taken while in office?”

Mused Oliver: “It’s an interesting question and real quick: Yes. Yes. A former president can be criminally prosecuted for actions taken in office. It is one of those questions to which the answer should really be obvious. Like, did Robert Durst kill those people, or which cereal mascot fucks the most, or who should play the next Batman? And for the record, the answers are: Absolutely, it’s not even close [Tony the Tiger] and Natasha Lyonne.”

Oliver also said that when this case was before the D.C. Circuit Court, Judge Florence Pan asked a “wild hypothetical” question of Trump’s attorney, John Sauer, that “illustrated just how absurd Trump’s position is.”

The question: Could a president who ordered Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival, who was not impeached, would he be subject to criminal prosecution?

Sauer’s response: “If he were impeached and convicted first.”

Said Oliver: “Wow. Only under those conditions? It really feels like the answer to, ‘Can the president kill a guy?’ shouldn’t be, ‘No, unless half the people in Congress think the other guy had it coming.'”

Meanwhile, this all means that there is a possibility that the federal trial on the Jan. 6 charges could be delayed until after the November presidential election.

“And if Trump wins that election, who knows what happens?” Oliver said. “I mean, fingers crossed, the sun explodes, but that is an outside chance.”

Oliver added: “So it seems like consequences for the insurrection could be yet another thing that Trump tries to kick down the road, ignoring it and hoping it goes away like his various debts or multiple court cases or acknowledging any of his children’s birthdays.”

He then noted a “fun fact” that Eric Trump’s birthday happens to be Jan. 6. (Eric Trump is one of the former president’s children with his late ex-wife, Ivana Trump.)

“It’s true — and a wonderful reminder that Trump’s the only politician in D.C. during the riot who considers that to be the second worst thing to happen to him on Jan. 6,” Oliver quipped.

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