a. Schedule an official trip to Russia on short notice.
b. Meet with Putin in private.
c. Tell the secret service to go home without him, stay in Putin’s custody
The trick is, he needs to have a few weeks notice that he’s going to have to do this. This is by no means certain - Trump can possibly pardon himself, can possibly still fire Mueller, can step down and have his vice president pardon him, or it’s also possible that despite all this smoke, Mueller doesn’t really have a case he can obtain a conviction of Trump with, taking into account that Trump can hire the best attorneys alive.
Anyways, if he decides he’s toast, he just schedules a trip and that’s that.
The Secret Service does have some sway over the president. I believe it was the Secret Service that persuaded Bush to mostly stay in the air on 9/11, though he eventually decided he needed to get back to Washington and overruled them. (I’ve always wondered why they let him finish reading “My Pet Goat,” though.)
As for Cheney, who was more or less actually in charge on 9/11, he wanted to stay in his West Wing office. He was physically hustled down into the bunker by his Secret Service detail–he himself tells the story and there are actually pictures of it.
Back to the hypothetical. What would Trump’s SS detail do? If they were convinced that taking off in a hurry might pose some actual physical danger to the President, I can imagine them trying to restrain him physically, or delay the takeoff until they were satisfied it was safe.
What, and have to stay in suspense for the rest of the day, when all everone else wanted to do was endlessly talk about those stupid fucking buildings in New York?
[Moderating]
Just a reminder, everyone, this thread is still in GQ, which means no political potshots. If it helps, just imagine that the President is a hypothetical unknown elected in 2024, of unknown party, and see what you would answer in that case.
I think it’s safe to say that ship has well and truely sailed for current Commander in chief.
So what do the regulations say on the matter. Can an enlisted man just say “no sir, I believe you are being blackmailed into giving that order” and that’s it, no subordination charges.
I’d be surprised if they could get the plane’s kitchen stocked in less than a couple hours on sudden notice. I suppose the hypothetical defecto-pres could just say “toss a few cases of MREs on board and we’ll rough it.” But really, do you expect the pres to eat those? Come on, there are limits. . .
Mr. Mnuchin could tell him how to go about it, certainly.
That’s another thread. But let’s not confuse policy with law. We are discussing matters of positive authority here.
See, I think they would. I think the AFB would immediately shut down all flights to clear the ground for taxi, and would get POTUS in the air in a matter of minutes. I think all other functions are secondary to the safety of the POTUS.
But I could be wrong; that’s why I asked.
I am surprised at the number of people who think the plane would not be ready to go. I don’t have any insider info on this, but I’m betting there’s a plane always stocked and ready to get the President out of Dodge in case of emergency. Many moons ago, in a discussion about crash landings and fuel dumping, a Navy Captain I knew made the claim that AF1 is the only plane that is always completely full of fuel. He argued that it has to be in case of evacuation of DC. He was a pilot with a fairly high clearance, but I’m not sure what insider information he really had.
It seems impossible to consider that if the feces hit the fan, there wouldn’t be a way to get the President in the air within minutes. I’m not arguing the logistics of planning presidential trips, or even the flight plan and clearance difficulties. But if POTUS showed up and said I’m in danger get me out of here, surely Andrews would stop all other traffic, get him in the air and scramble an escort before they stopped to ask any questions.
That’s a different question than “Would they take him to Moscow?” Is AF1 a courtesy traditionally provided to the President by the Air Force? Or does it serve at his pleasure/discretion?
I do not doubt this for one hot second. AF1 will always have the “legs” to get POTUS “off the ‘X’”. A the same time AF1 is departing the emergency, tankers would also take off to rendezvous and in-flight refuel AF1 as part of the contingency.
. . . but that’s for a legitimate, unplanned emergency. I think I took your OP to mean a whimsical, non-emergency trip. In an emergency, the red flag would have gone up and the “corporate climate” would be such that everyone understood an emergency existed, and the system would work to save POTUS’ bacon. With a non-emergency, ‘whimsical,’ unannounced trip to wherever (especially Russia), and this trip interrupting other forecasted trips, I don’t think that sense of urgency would be there, and confusion would be the norm. In the former case, the system will provide all the resources you need without question; in the latter case, you can count on the fuel onboard AF1, but the support system would be subject to questions and second-guessing, especially by the NCA and Cabinet, who would have a very short opportunity to nix any extra support to continue the flight.
I fully agree. The Secret Service would solve the immediate emergency problem, and get him to safe altitude/orbit. But then there, they would start asking, “Okay, so what is the danger, and what’s our next course of action? How do we mitigate this danger?” They would not want to commit to a course of action to put the POTUS in further danger, or complicate things; this is why I suspect competent leadership would step in and ask, “Wait, Mr. President. . . you’re in danger and you want to fly to where??”
AF1 is a military-owned, at-his-disposal aircraft for official business, to be used at his discretion. He gets away for using it to trips to Mar-a-Lago because of the “emergency evacuation” principle we’d covered. I can’t remember who it was, exactly, but I think it was the Sec’y of the Treasury, who got into some hot water for using a similar military-owned aircraft so he and his wife could take a trip to some “official”-sounding summit meeting, but it ended up being a glorified shopping trip that fell under Fraud, Waste, and Abuse. IIRC, his wife had to reimburse the government for the cost of equivalent airfare (she’s not a government official). I recall a similar episode where the AFRICOM CCDR was using his detailed military airlift for similar “party junkets.” He was forced to resign. Bottom line: it’s a courtesy provided, and used at his pleasure/discretion, but because the POTUS has National Command responsibilities, AF1 follows him around.
I think what’s lacking in the original scenario, is a credible, real-world event or excuse for the President to go to Russia. As long as “the system” is convinced it’s a legitimate trip, he has a chance to make it to Russian airspace. Without that credibility, confusion and then suspicion skyrocket the chance that his plans fall apart.
I’d love to see them bundle him on to a helicopter and take him straight to Mt. Weather. Let him try and avoid subpoena deliveries in the bunker!
So then I come back to the question of authority, who has the final say on whether his plans constitute “Offical Business.”? I’m betting it’s SecDef, and we just got a “loyal” replacement.
Mnuchin’s honeymoon. That request was denied, but it brought to light a previous trip to see the solar eclipse. I believe they ended with a laundry list of invalid trips, but that he only ended up paying for his and his wife’s seats on the plane. They did not pay the whole cost of the flights.
I feel sorry for the poor bastards that have to get into a locked, secured Mt. Weather bunker to serve paperwork. Ever hear the story of how they served the warrants at Rocky Flats?
With anyone lower on the food chain, there’s typically a superior to enforce what the bureaucratic beancounters would have to review and approve. I’ve done that; when one of my Airmen tried to get full reimbursement for a Mustang rental car on a business trip, far above and beyond what the GSA-based cost was. I told him “no,” and he ate $500 out of pocket for it. Granted, that was after the fact. . . But who’s the approval authority on the President? Ultimately, nobody before the fact, because he’s at the top of the food chain. But the press can have a field day after it, and he’ll deal with the political consequences thereafter. I reckon the GAO can bill him for things outside of official business, and then Congress can go after him for unpaid bills not related to official business. that’s for the politicians to decide though; I lightly strain to think of a POTUS leaving with unpaid bills.
Thank you! I thought it was that guy . . . sheesh.
Tripler
I vaguely remember hearing somewhere that the POTUS has to pay for his own personal meals/menu at the White House. He gets a salary, after all. . .
I’m curious about the passports. I’m a Canadian but I’ve been to Afghanistan and Iraq on business and was told both times to destroy my passport when I got home and report it lost and replaced because you can’t have those stamps in your passport unless you enjoy cavity searches at international business hubs. Diplomats and military guys flew on a federal green passport and not their personal blue passport when they travelled to war zone/drug source cu tries. Don’t American officials/diplomats/armed forces carry their own passports for duty tours?
Speaking as retired military . . . it depends on your method of travel.
When I was deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, I was on military airlift/military chartered civilian airlift. Because we were flying out of a military point of embarkation (POE) and arriving at a military point of debarkation (POD), both of which were considered military “installations”, passports were not required–our military IDs were used. I don’t think I had a passport issued to me my first two deployments. Flying commercial into/out of the US into other areas, we were told to bring our passports and military ID. Part of that was to be prepared for either instance (foreign customs wanted to see either/both), or to avoid showing our military ID and use just the passport (avoids certain. . . appearances). When I returned from an overseas tour from Korea, coming through US Customs on a civilian flight, all they asked was where I’d been, and then for my military ID; they didn’t bother with the passport.
Bottom line: it’s strongly influenced by your mode of travel, but is also subject to a roll of the dice.
Tripler
Been there, got the t-shirt, smelled the dust, ate the shwarma/kimchi, done that.
[ul]
[li]GA planes flying VFR need tower clearance but don’t file a flight plan.[/li][li]There are procedures to scramble fighters quickly from military or joint military/civilian air fields; no flight plan given.[/li][li]There are procedures to get the president airborne quickly in the event of an emergency (inbound nuclear strike, etc.) without a filed flight plan; AF1 will probably fly a ‘racetrack’ pattern over somewhere safe, whether that’s the Atlantic Ocean or one of the flyover states probably depends upon specific circumstances. Yes, those procedures probably include fighters being vectored to fly alongside AF1, but do you really think if a controller hears, “Air Force One to Tower, we’re taxiing, requesting immediate clearance to take off on runway ___” that it won’t be given? Hell, I bet it’s something they at least roleplay if not full on act out every so often.[/li][/ul]
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I feel sorry for the poor bastards that have to get into a locked, secured Mt. Weather bunker to serve paperwork. Ever hear the story of how they served the warrants at 