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and by judy and peter blum kovler foundation, pursuing solutions for america's neglected needs. announcer: and now, "bbc news" . i'm christian fraser. . this is "the context." >> this is what you are asking us to say. a president is entitled for total personal gain to use the trappings of his office without facing criminal liability. >> if you don't have immunity, you are not going to do anything. you will become a ceremonial president. >> even before t day began, he held his campaign saying since they can't be out on the tra, they are going to bring the trail to them here in new york. >> trump is claiming absolute immunity, which essentially means presidents would be

inoculated from any prosecution. that is a really sweeping claim of executive power. ♪ christian: a hugely consequential day for donald trump. the criminal trial resumes in manhattan. a decision is pending on the gag order which he continues to float. in the hearing and the supreme court on whether he is entitled to presidential immunity. all of that within hours of trump being named as a co-conspirator in a new set of indictments in arizona. we have top legal analysis for you tonight on a whole string of legal problems facing the former president. also tonight, the case that sparked the #metoo movement. . a top court in new york has overturned the 2020 conviction of the hollywood mogul harvey weinstein, on the grounds did not receive a fair trial. the scottish first minister scraps many agreement with the greens. opposition parties are threatening a vote of no-confidence.

and we will look at labour's proposal to re-nationalize the u.k.'s railways. is it full fact nationalization? we will give you the expert view. good evening. the declaration of independence held to certain truths to be self-evident, that all men and women are created equal. is that equal before the law? neither above it nor below it, or should formerresident be immune from prosecution? not just lawsuits while in office but consequences for crimes afterwards? that was the question before the supreme court in washington today. in new york, the former president currently on trial for conspiracy and corruption said if nine justices failed to grant him immunity for official acts he had taken an office, then future presidents would be inundated with prosecutions that would hamstring their ability to serve in the white house. mr. trump: the argument on the argument on immunity is very important. . a president has to have immunity

or this has nothing to do with me. this has to do with a president in theuture, for 100 years from now. if you don't have immunity, you are not going to do anything. you will become a ceremonial president. who will ju be doing nothing. you will not take any of the risks, both good and bad. you are going to make some great decisions, and save the country and you will make decisions which are unfortunate. but that is the way it is. christian: the justices and the supreme court were skeptical. john roberts question the scope of trump's argument when it comes to official acts. as a president really have immunity if they are appointed ambassador of the house in exchange for a bribe? how would you determine if a president's actions are part of his official conduct? justice thomas asked whether they should differentiate between a president acting as president, and the president acting as a candidate. and then this from justice sonia sotomayor. > we would be creating, a situation in which we would be saying this is what you are

asking us to say. which is that a president is entitled, not to make a mistake, but more than that. a president is entitled for total personal gain to use the trappings of his office. that is what you are trying to get us to hold. without facing criminal liability. christian: the attorney for special counsel jack smith who is prosecuting the attempt to overturn the election, pushed back against claims that donald trump's efforts amounted to access president. . the chief justice did push back on him, reminding the special counsel how easy it is for a prosecutor to get a grand jury to bring an indictment, relying on the good faith of the prosecutor may not be enough, in some cases. we will talk about events in new york. our correspondent will bring us up to date on the hush money case, and the evidence we have been hearing today. let's focus on the supreme court. gary o'donoghue has been carrying that angle for us.

as we have st out, the justices appeared skeptical of his claim of absolute immunity. there is a question that needs to be answered. do the allegations in the indictment fall under official acts of the presidency or not? why is that relevant? gary: because it is a distinction being drawn here. interesting it is a distinction that one of the conservative members of the court, amy coney barrett, was interested in. whether or not any of the things donald trump is accused of fall into the private realm, because donald trump's lawyers acknowledge that private acts, asked him a private row, were -- can be subject to prosecution. she went throu some of the things that are part of the indictment. and donald trump's lawyer acknowledged they were potentially in the private realm. what you are starting i think to see here is a way forward where perhaps the supreme court says,

look, there is a bunch of stuff in this case that may be subject to prosecution. that -- there may be some areas of the original indictment that may be more problematic. go back to the earlier courts, sort out, given our distinction between the official acts in the private acts, go back and sort out what you think you can actually prosecute, given that distinction. and restart the case. i don't think -- you are not going to get from the supreme court a blanket, total immunity. i think that is very clear from what we saw this morning. but you are also not going to get all is fine, carry on with this prosecution. i think there will be more gray area than that. . that is to introduce even more delays than the ones we have had up until now for this january 6 case. christian: the other cases that are delayed, the one in new york continues. and the witness was back on the stand today, the former

publisher of the national enquirer. he was outlining on tuesday the agreement he reached with donald trump to buy and kill damaging stories ahead of the 2016 election. what more do we hear today? gary: -- nawa: he went into further detail about two of those instances. first with the playboy model, karen mcdougal. david packer on the stand said he had agreed with michael cohen to pay karen mcdougal at the direction of donald trump $150,000 to buy her story about an alleged affair. one of donald trump denies. michael cohen had a sheet -- had assured him that the bus will take care of it. he will be paid. but then david packer said after speaking to his general counsel about being reimbursed, he was told it was not a good idea. he told michael cohen, don't reimburse me. it is a bad idea. the deal is off. then we use the prosecution to

bridge to the stormy daniels payment and tried to explain why, as they alledge, michael cohen made the payment to stormy daniels at donald trump's direction. that was one piece of it. but back to this issue of intent. you just have david packer placing donald trump's concerns about the election at the forefront of all of their conversations. even says after-the-fact that a dinner at the white house thinking, that donald trump asked david packer how is karen? when both time stormy daniels did an interview with cnn, donald trump complained that they were breaking their agreement. and at one point, dave said donald trump said story -- stormy daniels owed him $24 million for every time he mentioned his name which was against their agreement. christian: thank you very much for that. that sets us up nicely. let's bring in the former u.s. federal prosecutor, sarah kristof. good to have you on the program. gary has laid out quite clearly

the case before the supreme urt. where does this leave, do you think, jack smith and the january 6 case which is before the lower courts in washington? sarah: it does not appear that that case is going to be proceeding quickly. and certainly not on the timeframe that jack smith wants. there is a lot of interesting questions raised by the court here on both sides of the aisle. they have a lot to sort through and muddle through, really, given the lack of caselaw law they have to rely on. and it is very likely that they send this back down for some clarification and some of these points regarding the prosecution. christian: this issue of whether acts were committed uer official duties, it is an important point. you can see why the supreme court wants to get this right.

if you back to the case of george w. bush at the -- at the time of the iraq invasion, he went into iraq without a u.n. resolution, there were some people who wanted to bring a prosecution against him on crimes of aggression. it would be limiting for a president, if there was not immunity, for some acts that were carried out within official duties. sara yeah, that's right. trump's team raises some legitimate points here, legitimate arguments about essentially stunting the ability of the president to do their job. the thing is, trump seemed -- trump came in guns a blazing, asking for this overarching full absolute immunity, which the court, you know, shut down very quickly. trump backs off that a little bit. now we have more nuance to legal

arguments that took place and more to come, frankly. christian: just another quick word on another case we have not introduced to our viewers. there was a decision today, a federal judge making the decision on the e. jean carroll case, the defamation case and the $80 million that he has been ordered to pay her. what happened in that case? sarah: we get essentially that the judge declined to throw out the jury verdict in that case. it is not a surprise. it is pretty standard procedure after a verdict like that for the losing party to challenge that, ask the judge to overturn the verdict. the judge said no. the verdict stands. christian: i want to get your thoughts on another case, another danger development in new york. decision to overturn the 2020 conviction in new york of the disgraced hollywood film producer, harvey weinstein pier 1 of the most prominent figures exposed by the #metoo movement,

he was sentenced to 23 years in prison. by a 4-3 majority, the appeals court has ruled the conviction was unsafe. they have ordered a retrial. he will remain in prison for a separate rape conviction. why was this conviction overturned? sarah: essentially, the court said improper evidence was offered, was presented by the state here regarding individuals who claimed they had been assaulted by weinstein but were not part of the underlying charges. essentially, there were many victims of weinstein who testified, for whom there were no particular criminal charges related to those victims. the state presented this as a pad conduct, a course of conduct. the highest court in new york said that was improper. it was to introduce this eviden that was outside of the four corners of the charges that

were actually in the case and before the jury. christian: how common is that? as i understand it, this has been more typical of late, that prosecutions have brought in witnesses that spe to a defendant's character. does that set a dangerous precedent in relation to other cases where there have been convictions? sarah: there is very extensive case law on this. how much information beyond the four corners of the allegations is appropriate to admit in a case. in each one of those cases, the prosecutors have to make decisions. are they going to seek to introduce that information and risk what happened here, this appeal? rejected years later. or are they going to limit the information they provide to the four corners of the complaint? and here, the prosecutors went broadly beyond what was in the

complaint, and this unfortunately is a result. we are almost four years later which is hard to believe. christian: i have called for a retrial. that now rests with the manhattan district attorney who obviously whether he can get as. conviction with a limited number of witnesses, but also putting these witsses who would allege they have suffered a sexual abuse back on the stand, correct? sarah: yeah, i mean, he has a number of things to way in deciding whether to proceed again with this case. at the end of the day, i suspect he probably will. it is incredibly traumatic for these victims to have to testify again. every -- to tell the story publicly, to have the nation's attention on it. it was incredibly traumatic the first time. it will be so again. there is a lot of things that

da's office has to consider in whether or not to proceed with the case. i expect they will, given all of -- after the balancing of all of those issues. christian: great to get your thoughts. thank you for coming on. sarah: thank you. christian: around the world and across the u.k., you are watching bbc news. let's have a look at the stories here today. a 13-year-old girl is due to appear before magistrates tomorrow after being charged with attempting to murder three people at a school in wales. two teachers and a people were taken to hospital with stab wounds after the incident yesterday. they have all since been discharged. a former senior executive at the post office has told the inquiry into the horizon i.t. scandal that she is truly sorry for the devastation because -- caused. she dealt with many of the legal cases against postmasters. she said she never knowingly did anything wrong. the army said it is too early to

know whether two household calvary horses will return to official duties after they were injured and they bolted through central london yesterday. the horses named quaker and evita, were spooked by the noises of builders moving rubble. they have been operated on and remain in serious condition. three soldiers and a cyclist were taken to hospitain that incident. starting to feel like we are into election season here in the u.k. a first major announcement from labour that they are promising to renationalize all passenger rail services within five years if they win the next election. the party says a new public body, great british railways, will inherit the existing contracts when they expire, taking on responsibility for running all services. here is the labour leader. >> i want our airways to work properly, with absolute focus on passengers. at the moment, i think anybody

using the railways would say they are pretty dysfunctional. there is record numbers of delays and cancellations. you've got prices on fares that don't match the quality of the service. and then you have the government stepping in with huge subsidies. the privatization has not worked. it has deteriorated. our job, if we are elected into government, is to pick this up, fix it. christian: as you would expect, the tory government has been quick to dismiss the plans. here the transport secretary. >> they have no idea how to pay for it. there will be increased costs. if you nationalize those country -- those companies, you have to hire civil services to manage that. christian: joining two discusses the editor of modern railway magazine. good to have you with us. is it nationalization? phil: it is partial nationalization, yes. nationalization of the train operating companies which the

majority of them are still on the private sector contract. however, there are certain parts of the rail system that will not be nationalized. access operators, again, they will stay on the private sector. and rolling stock companies who own the majority of the trains on the network. christian: can it be run as an integrated business if you still have carriages, rolling store outside the control? you can't have track without trains on them. phil: the crucial thing is bringing together track and train. but when you talk about bringing together track and train, the key thing is the operators and creating the dynamics and relationships within the industry to make it function better. this is something that has been talked about for some while.

there was a review initiated in 2018. that report in 2021. what labor -- what labour is proposing is similar to what was in the recommendations. since that report in 2021, the conservatives have changed tack and they have gone to a more private sector led approach. labour's proposal is to create great british railways and that was in the review. christian: the key question we want to know is will it be cheaper? phil: well, that is ultimately the decision for the government to make. whoever forms that government. there is the regulated majority of them, and there was a balance to be had. there is a line that there were two sources of funding for the railway. over recent years, the balance shifted more towards the people buying the tickets and paying the fairs. if labor chooses to change that,

they are saying that they want to cut costs and eliminate waste. that is a very easy thing to say on the face of it. we will wait to see what the detail of that is and how that will work out. christian: in terms of our trains running on time, there will be a lot of people out there who say, it is worth a shot. can't be any worse, can it? phil: i think that has got to be our focus in the short-term, regardless of whatever we do in terms of the organization of the railway public private sector. there are things that we can probably do around that now. one of which is sorting out the industrial disputes with the drivers union which has been going on for a wle. there's another set of strikes coming up shortly. that is obviously a significant impact on the railways. some people can rearrange their travel. that is the short-term thing we can do. improve industrial relators more generally and try to sort out the issues. quite a lot of that does not

require the structural changes. and what labour is proposing with bringing this into the public sector is saying it will do that when the contracts come up. that will happen progressively anyway. they have said they want to get on and do things in the meantime. i think that is absolutely the right approach. there were some things the conservative government could do now. christian: phil sherratt, good to talk with you. thank you for coming up. the scottish first minister has scrapped the smp's power-sharing agreement with the grains. he said, recent tensions between the parties over the scrapping of key climate targeting in scotland had convinced him to go it alone. the party will return to minority rule with immediate effect. the scottish tory leader douglas ross announced at this morning's first minister's questions he would be tabling a vote of no-confidence, a vote we are expecting next week. the scottish labour leader has called for a snap election. let's speak to the columnist for the times and author of "th

united kingdom." good to have you with us. not very long ago, the first minister said that agreement was worth its weight in gold. why has the balance shifted? ian: i think the gold standard has been devalued. that's for sure. it's very difficult to know exactly what happened. people are still trying to disentangle it from various rumors and such likes has been going around. late last night, they clearly decided that he could not afford to wait around for the minority scottish green party to decide on its extreme emergency general meeting next month that it was going to possibly detach itself from the agreement. he decided the best thing to do was to seize the moment, seize the initiative, take control, and send the ministers packing.

it was a pretty ruthless exercise. they were deeply shocked by it. extremely angered. one of the green minister said this is a betrayal, that the snp have capitulated to the most reactionary and backward looking grps, had sacrificed future generations by this move. it is a bad dirce. christian: i heard the deputy leader of the greens on the radio saying on some of the social issues, there was a fringe of socially conservative smp's who obviously got the year of him. you can think of what that might be, rent controls, prescription of puberty blocks that have been paused on the back. and of course, there is the issue over the green plans as well.

the net zero plans. is it true that he is under pressure within his own party? iain: he has been under pressure in his on the party over precisely this alliance with the greens. which many in the snp feel has been unacceptable and has led to a number of catastrophic policies. the deposit return scheme, the hate crime act, and most notably, the gender recognition reform bill which was very much inspired by the greens, in which had to be vetoed by the u.k. government. when they talk about these conservative elements, what they mean are the gender critical in the smp, mike joanna cherry, who have been very hostile toward a number of the transgender policies. self identification, identity

therapy, and giving puberty blockers to young children. i think this really was, in the end, the final straw. strangely, it was not over the abandonment of the scottish government emissions targets. christian: that's interesting. iain: it seems to be about the report and the fact that the leader of this college -- the scottish greens would not accept a scientific validity. christian: just briefly, the vote of no-confidence. would he survive that? iain: it's very much up in the air. the greens announced they will be supporting with the conservatives and labor and the liberal democrats in this vote of no-confidence. given the 63 seats in parliament, it comes down amazingly to one vote of ash reagan, a former smp and former

minister who has defected to the other party. christian: in the balance. iain: now holds announcer: funding for presentation of this program is provided by... financial services firm, raymond james. bdo. accountants and advisors. cunard is a proud supporter of public television. announcer: funding was also provided by, the freeman foundation. and by judy and peter blum kovler foundation, pursuing solutions for amica's neglected needs. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ announcer: funding for presentation of this program is provided by... woman: a successful business owner sells his company and