Donald Trump Took 'New Turn' With 'Seal Team Six' Claim: Senator

Democratic Senator Brian Schatz has claimed "American democracy is at stake" in the upcoming presidential election after Donald Trump's attorney argued presidential immunity would extend to political assassinations during a Washington, D.C. court case.

On Tuesday, Trump attorney D. John Sauer told U.S. Circuit Judge Florence Pan that if a president ordered SEAL Team Six to kill a political opponent their actions would still be covered by presidential legal immunity, unless they were also impeached and convicted by Congress.

Reacting to Sauer's remarks from the Senate floor on Tuesday, in reference to Trump, Schatz commented: "In the authoritarian future he's clamoring for he gets to do anything he wants, wielding unparalleled power in the presidency and zero repercussions. That's not a president, that's a dictator. That's not equal justice under the law, that's one law for Trump and another for everybody else. Think about what they're saying and ask yourselves are you comfortable with that?"

The Hawaii senator expanded on this point during an MSNBC interview with anchor Chris Hayes, where he argued there is a key distinction between off-the-cuff comments made by Trump and those presented in court by his legal team.

Schatz said: "I do not think that the American public and even the American political community is sufficiently alarmed...I just want to emphasize one essential point, now they are lawyering this up.

"There was a point where he was individually acting in an irresponsible way and essentially engaging in stochastic terrorism but it is much different when the official position of Trump's lawyers is going to be that he could order a murder of his political rivals using Seal Team 6 and that would be up to the legislature to determine whether or not it was criminal."

Appearing visibly frustrated Schatz continued: "It's a new Rubicon we've passed and I think the American public has to wake up to the fact that look, it's very exhausting to follow Trump, certainly if you're not a political person...but American democracy is at stake and this is a new turn for him where he's taking the official position that he gets to do whatever he wants."

Newsweek has reached out to representatives of Trump for comment by email.

Trump, who has been indicted in four separate criminal cases, is arguing charges against him should be dismissed as they relate to actions he took as president, and are thus protected by presidential immunity.

This claim was rejected in his federal election interference case by presiding Judge Tanya Chutkan, but Trump's team launched an appeal that resulted in the case appearing before U.S. Circuit Judge Florence Pan on Tuesday.

During the hearing Pan asked Sauer whether a president could "order SEAL Team Six to assassinate a political rival" and still have their actions protected by presidential immunity.

Sauer responded: "He would have to be, and would speedily be, you know, impeached and convicted before the criminal prosecution." Asked to clarify his position the attorney said the president would need to be impeached and convicted by Congress, thus overriding presidential immunity, for a prosecution to go ahead.

James Pearce, assistant to Special Counsel Jack Smith, said this would be "an extraordinarily frightening future" to which Sauer replied: "That's not a frightening future. That's our republic."

During a Fox News town hall event in December hosted by Sean Hannity Trump was asked to guarantee he wouldn't "abuse power as retribution against anybody" if returned to the White House. The Republican frontrunner replied by vowing he wouldn't be a dictator "except for day one."