“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.
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.
Having a president executing all their political opponents is kinda the end of the country, though, right? I don’t know how it can come back from that.
We are pretty fucked either way if SCOTUS claims a president is immune. I’d just like Biden to take them down with the rest of the country if they do so.
Them having the power to do it is the end of the country. Biden not doing it won’t stop the Republican in X years from doing it. We’d already be screwed at that point, and poetic justice would just make us feel better until la Terreur comes for us, too.
Yeah I think we totally agree there.