Colin Kaepernick’s legal team is signaling an intention to subpoena depositions from President Donald Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, and other administration officials in a “collusion” matter alleging that the quarterback’s failure to secure a contract is tied to his kneeling behavior, unnamed sources close to the case told Yahoo! Sports.

To succeed in a quest led by attorney Mark Geragos, Kaepernick’s legal team would need to convince the arbiter and a U.S. District Court judge that the testimony is crucial to his case. USA Today confirmed the Yahoo! Sports story that the subpoenas are, indeed, likely to be sought.

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“The kneeling was an appeal to the flag and a peaceful protest,” civil rights activist Rev. Jesse Jackson said on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle” Thursday night.

He referenced several high-profile cases in which blacks were killed or badly injured in altercations with police.

“It was not burning or desecrating the flag,” Jackson added, referring to Kaepernick’s choice to kneel during the playing of the national anthem, sparking similar behavior across the league. “There is nothing harmful or threatening about kneeling to the flag.”

“By interfering in the process, [President Trump] has convinced his constituents of a de facto boycott,” said Jackson, who is 76. “His opinion is no ordinary opinion because he is the president.”

Last August, Jackson told Bill Maher he believed NFL owners colluded to keep Kaepernick from playing. He noted at that time that since Kaepernick wasn’t burning the flag or hustling drugs to his teammates or shooting people, he should have the right to play football and express himself simultaneously.

“It’s never going to happen,” said host Laura Ingraham about the possibility that attempts to force President Trump to testify in Kaepernick’s case against the NFL would meet with success.

Related: Kaepernick’s Attorney Accuses NFL of Colluding with Donald Trump

“As a legal matter, that’s just preposterous,” Ingraham added. “The president is not going to testify in Colin Kaepernick’s suit. It’s never gonna happen. His lawyer knows it’s never gonna happen. His lawyer, frankly, should be sanctioned if he actually tries anything like that.”

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The former San Francisco 49ers quarterback’s grievance against 32 NFL owners began last October, following the free agent’s lengthy stint of unemployment, as many outlets reported.

His attorney at the time, in announcing his intention to file a grievance under the collective bargaining agreement on his client’s behalf, noted his contention that the alleged “collusive conduct” that brought on Kaepernick’s predicament involved “partisan political provocation by the executive branch of our government.”

Related: Oh Great: We’re Getting a TV Show About Colin Kaepernick?

In other words, Kaepernick’s legal team contends Trump’s outspoken opinion on the inappropriateness of athletes kneeling during the anthem is the reason the football player doesn’t have a job.

Of course, there are other explanations for Kaepernick’s joblessness — mediocre (at best) performance is one obvious example.

In a statistical analysis of his performance during the 2016 season, “10 quarterbacks were worse, 7 were about the same. . . and 15 were better,” The Washington Post reported.  Overall, they ranked him between 18th and 19th among the 32 other quarterbacks’ assessed using their 2017 figures.

“Colin Kaepernick’s biggest problem? Performance, not politics,” read ESPN‘s NFL Nation headline in March of 2017.

In the ESPN article, Kevin Seifert argued the free agent hadn’t been an effective quarterback for years and that teams are “swayed first by a player’s potential (or lack thereof) to help them win. Protest or not, Kaepernick would be under contract now if he had played demonstrably better in recent years.”

Regardless of whether Kaepernick’s own performance was his undoing or if President Trump somehow put the entire NFL against him, the chance a subpoena actually would result in the president’s sitting for a deposition is iffy at best.

Whether special counsel Robert Mueller can compel President Trump to testify before a federal grand jury on the Russia “collusion” case is something of an open matter, but some on his legal team have suggested he needn’t comply.

The chance a subpoena actually would result in the president’s sitting for a deposition is iffy at best.

If that is the case, the chance that Trump’s legal team would advise him to testify before an arbiter in a supposed “collusion” case among NFL coaches to deny Kaepernick a job does not seem likely.

Michele Blood is a Flemington, New Jersey-based freelance writer and a regular contributor to LifeZette.