MSNBC host Joe Scarborough on Monday blasted President Trump Donald TrumpTrump lashes out after grand jury seated for New York criminal probe Schumer tees up vote on Jan. 6 commission bill Senators struggle to save Jan. 6 commission MORE’s attorney, Rudy Giuliani, for claiming the president could shoot former FBI Director James Comey James Brien ComeyThe FBI should turn off the FARA faucet Barr threatened to resign over Trump attempts to fire Wray: report 'Fox News Sunday' to mark 25 years on air MORE in the Oval Office and not be indicted, saying it's a talking point tyrants use. Scarborough said on “Morning Joe” that the former New York City mayor’s claim was “literally out of a tyrant’s playbook.” “You pick the president’s sworn political enemy and then you put it out there about the shooting of him,” Scarborough said. ADVERTISEMENT “And you let the president’s followers know that: Vladimir Putin could shoot his political rival and not be thrown in jail; [Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan could do the same thing,” he added, referring to leaders in Russia and Turkey. “Except this is in America,” Scarborough continued. “What if Barack Obama Barack Hussein ObamaWarren urges Biden to replace Fed's Quarles in testy exchange Content of Biden's agenda trumps Republican complaints about process Obama to join social media event on vaccines next week MORE had said in 2009, 2010 or let’s say Eric Holder Eric Himpton HolderBiden: 'Simply wrong' for Trump DOJ to seek journalists' phone records Returning the ghost of Eric Holder to the Justice Department Republicans eye new House majority through redistricting MORE here, what if Eric Holder had said, you know what Barack Obama could shoot Rush Limbaugh and he can’t be indicted,” Scarborough said. “Barack Obama could shoot George W. Bush and he couldn’t be indicted. The reaction from Republicans and the media would be just mind boggling.” Giuliani told HuffPost over the weekend that even if Trump had shot Comey, he still couldn't be indicted. “In no case can he be subpoenaed or indicted,” Giuliani told the news outlet. “I don’t know how you can indict while he’s in office. No matter what it is.” “If he shot James Comey, he’d be impeached the next day,” Giuliani said. “Impeach him, and then you can do whatever you want to do to him.” The New York Times obtained a letter over the weekend from Trump's legal team to the special counsel's office that argued that the Constitution gives the president the broad authority to, "if he wished, terminate the inquiry, or even exercise his power to pardon." The Times was the first to report on the existence of the letter, although the president appeared to foreshadow the newspaper's scoop minutes before it was published on Saturday. Trump questioned whether Mueller's office or the Justice Department had leaked his legal team's letter to the media. "There was No Collusion with Russia (except by the Democrats)," Trump tweeted shortly before the Times story was published. "When will this very expensive Witch Hunt Hoax ever end? So bad for our Country. Is the Special Counsel/Justice Department leaking my lawyers letters to the Fake News Media? Should be looking at Dems corruption instead?"<doc-sep>(CNN) — Rudy Giuliani called his example of President Donald Trump being able to shoot James Comey and not be prosecuted an exaggerated hypothetical example of presidential immunity and insisted Trump would not pardon himself in the Russia probe in any case. “I said, you know very theoretically, the answer is the President can’t be prosecuted for anything,” Giuliani said on CNN’s “Cuomo Prime Time.” He continued, “That would be entirely ridiculous. … It was a hypothetical.” Giuliani’s comment to CNN’s Chris Cuomo came after he told HuffPost he believed the President could not be indicted while in office and went so far as to say that Trump could shoot the former FBI director and not face charges before being impeached. Still, he stood by the remark about hypothetically shooting the former FBI director as an example of his belief in the strength of the President’s immunity. “Almost every head of state has the same kind of immunity,” Giuliani said. Giuliani’s comments raised eyebrows, as did the assertion that the President had the power to pardon himself. Earlier Monday, the President tweeted about his pardon power. “As has been stated by numerous legal scholars, I have the absolute right to PARDON myself, but why would I do that when I have done nothing wrong?” Trump wrote. “In the meantime, the never ending Witch Hunt, led by 13 very Angry and Conflicted Democrats (& others) continues into the mid-terms!” Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley told CNN later Monday that if he were in Trump’s position, he would consider hiring a new attorney. Giuliani, however, stood by his statement that there is “no limitation” on Trump’s pardon power. He said the “practical limitation” to the power was that a president pardoning himself would likely trigger impeachment proceedings. But the former New York City mayor said the discussion was more of a legal exercise anyway, and that Trump would not have to face charges, or, as the President tweeted, have to pardon himself. “He’s not going to pardon himself,” Giuliani said.<doc-sep>
(CNN) — Donald Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani claimed Sunday that the President hypothetically could have shot the former FBI director to end the Russia investigation and not face prosecution for it while in office. Giuliani told HuffPost in an interview that Trump’s presidential power extends so far that “in no case can he be subpoenaed or indicted.” “I don’t know how you can indict while he’s in office. No matter what it is,” he said. The President’s attorney said Trump would face impeachment rather than prosecution if he had shot former FBI Director James Comey in the Oval Office to end the Russia probe instead of firing him, which Trump did last May. “If he shot James Comey, he’d be impeached the next day,” Giuliani said to HuffPost. “Impeach him, and then you can do whatever you want to do to him.” CNN has reached out to Giuliani for comment. Giuliani’s comments echo the argument Trump attorney Jay Sekulow and then-Trump lawyer John Dowd made in a 20-page letter sent in January to special counsel Robert Mueller. In the letter, which The New York Times published Saturday, Sekulow and Dowd argued the President could not possibly have committed obstruction in the Russia probe because he has constitutional powers to “terminate the inquiry, or even exercise his power to pardon if he so desired.” In an interview with CNN last month, Giuliani said Mueller’s team informed Trump’s attorneys that they have concluded they cannot indict a sitting president and “all they get to do is write a report.” The opinion that a sitting president is immune from indictment and criminal prosecution because it interferes with his ability to carry out his constitutionally given duties has been the position of the Office of Legal Counsel in the Justice Department since the Nixon administration, and was reaffirmed in the Clinton administration, but it has never been tested in court. It remains an open question whether, if investigators find potentially criminal evidence against Trump, Mueller’s team will try to challenge these longstanding Justice Department guidelines. “Were the President to shoot someone, he would be chargeable with the crime of murder under state law, and possibly federal law depending on who was shot,” CNN legal analyst Michael Zeldin, a former assistant to Mueller, told CNN. According to Zeldin, the Office of Legal Counsel opinion advising the Justice Department on federal prosecution policy “would not bind state prosecutors from proceeding.” “I disagree with Giuliani and I don’t believe the law favors the position he is articulating,” Zeldin said. CNN’s Adil Trehan contributed to this report.