“Unlikely Trump will ever be tried for the crimes he committed,” says ex-Judge J. Michael Luttig
It’s not a hard question, or at least it hasn’t been before: Does the United States have a king – one empowered to do as they please without even the pretext of being governed by a law higher than their own word – or does it have a president? Since Donald Trump began claiming he enjoys absolute immunity from prosecution for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, two courts have issued rulings striking down this purported right, recognizing that one can have a democracy or a dictatorship, but not both.
“We cannot accept former President Trump’s claim that a President has unbounded authority to commit crimes that would neutralize the most fundamental check on executive power – the recognition and implementation of election results,” states the unanimous opinion of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, issued this past February, upholding a lower court’s take on the question. “Nor can we sanction his apparent contention that the Executive has carte blanche to violate the rights of individual citizens to vote and have their votes cast.”
You can’t well keep a republic if it’s effectively legal to overthrow it. But at oral arguments last week, conservative justices on the Supreme Court – which took up the case rather than cosign the February ruling – appeared desperate to make the simple appear complex. Justice Samuel Alito, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, argued that accountability was what would actually lead to lawlessness.
You guys don’t get it yet? They all talk, they coordinated not to pass it then decided who can vote what to piss off the least amount of their constituents. That’s it, it’s all politics.
The fact that your supreme court is even willing to deal with the question of whether a president should have absolute immunity pretty much says it all.
This is why they feel they’ve already won. They can say shit it court like the president has the authority to kill political opponents. It’s a hail mary for them, but it doesn’t matter at this point. The highest court in the US is now listening and thinking about that question.
If Biden has absolute immunity after a ruling to that effect, he would be within that authority to have the justices that voted for that rounded up and shot, then appoint a Supreme Court that will reverse it.
I would love to see it.
He won’t, though. Repubs have counted on Dems to abide by the spirit of the rules even while they obstruct and dismantle everything with zero regard for a functioning democracy. The Dems would all be desperately reaching across the aisle for a compromise up until they are executed in the afternoon on January 20th.
True, but could you imagine if he went completely off the rails after a ruling like that? Sets up a guillotine in front of Congress and starts marching Republicans out one after one.
I’d watch the fuck out of that on Pay-per-view.
If the Court decides that the President has unbound authority then why shouldn’t Joe Biden shoot Donald Trump with a gun? It’s not illegal when the President does it!
The main issue isn’t necessarily the ethics of this.
It’s that the Republicans and the Democrats have different bases.
Biden doing this would likely alienate moderate democrats, with many in the house/senate voting to support any impeachment inquiry. The same is not true for any Republican today.
Their base has literally been “At least it’s not a democrat.”
Biden’s base is “at least he’s not Trump” so I’m not sure.
stack the court. If the court is going to undermine any sort of accountability for criminals then the best thing to do is stack the court
You will never see that because liberal democrats like Joe Biden hold civility and precedent with more primacy than halting a fascist uprising. This is why leftists claim that liberals always fall in line with fascism.
