The president, using hit squads, kills all the members of Congress except two: a house member and a senator. These are now the only members of Congress. They each constitute a quorum. Both are loyal to the president.
The attorney general blocks all federal investigations into the presidents actions. The president pardons the hit squads.
The two remaining members of Congress each refuse to accept any further members. Congress impeaches and convicts all Supreme Court justices. Congress enacts legislation to limit the Supreme Court to one justice. The president, with advice and consent, appoints his wife as the only justice.
For any state criminal trials against the president for killing all the members of Congress, the attorney general moves the trials to federal court, where the president’s wife rules that federal law preempts the state trials because the president has the legal power to kill whomever he wants.
If they have the military behind them, they can do almost anything. Of course, there’d also be a serious “insurgency” to deal with.
But, how do the remaining members of Congress “refuse” to accept any new members? The states elect they’re own Senators and Representatives, and unless they just throw out the constitution, that tells us how many of each we get in the several states.
I mean, if you’re just asking if someone could take over the US by force, the answer is yes. Could they do it w/o trashing the constitution and without the backing of the military? No.
Obviously practically this wouldn’t work, but I assume the OP is just asking if it would work out legally.
I’d say no. Killing someone with a hit-squad is going to be a crime in whatever state the person was in, and I imagine the state AG would still press charges even if the federal gov’t declines. And IIRC, Presidential pardons are only good for federal offenses.
Congress can refuse to seat new members. Presumably the one person Seante and the one person House would just refuse to seat any newly elected members.
Of course, that only works until the next election.
The members of each house get to determine who is qualified to be a member. The two remaining Congress members could refuse to accept anyone a state or governor attempts to appoint.
Thats why the attorney general moves the case to federal court. The president’s wife (the only Supreme Court justice) will rule this move legal and then rules the president’s actions legal.
What happens if the President’s hit squad only ever kills select people – say, a Representative and a Senator – in DC, possibly while Congress is in session there or during a State of the Union address or whatever? Can the big guy freely hand out pardons so long as he only ever has folks whack people in the nation’s capital?
I think that a state, say Virginia, could allege that the conspiracy was put in motion while the President was within its borders, or one of the guns was brought in from another state, or some minor element that puts a nexus to the crime in that state.
Well, since we are talking about mass murder on one hand, we can surely massage the law on the other. The state could assert power under the VA and KY Resolutions of 1798 and claim that their nullification of SCOTUS (Mrs. P) is lawful.
Disagree. The 218 and 51 are assuming that there are a full complement of Representatives and Senators. If there are only 1 in each body, then they would constitute a quorum.
Perhaps the “equal suffrage in the Senate” part of the constitution would come into play but the unrepresented 49 states.
Maybe, though the Congress still votes even when some states are short a Senator or House member. The senate still passed legislation even when Minnesota was down a senator while waiting for Al Franken to get his election results certified.