Could the president, his wife, hit squads, a house member, a senator, and the AG take over America?

[Candyman74]

@Pierrot_Le_Fou

And have it all be nice and legal?

The president, using hit squads, kills all the members of Congress except two:

Given that stage 1 is clearly not nice and legal, I’d have to say no.

[Alessan]

What would actually happen, of course, is that the Secret Service or the military would kill the president and then wait for his successor to pardon them.

[Bricker]

@godix

You stipulate as part of the question that the people writing laws and the person interpreting laws are under the presidents control. Which makes the entire issue of ‘is this legal’ rather silly. Of course it’s legal, as part of your hypothetical you stipulated that the President can write whatever law he wants and can have any existing law interpreted however he wants.

Now, if the question is “Is it legal under current rules” the answer is obviously no. As already mentioned, states would nail the President for murder. I’m quite sure a creative state AG could find a way.

Also note, the hypothetical does not allow him to change the Constitution. So, assuming the President felt bound by the Constitution, the absolute max he has in office is 8 years even if all other methods of removal failed. There’s no way to change limit unless 3/4 the states went along with repealing the 22nd Amendment.

Sure, except that the hypothetical envisions that the populace will robotically accept the Supreme-Court-Of-One’s rulings. So if the Court were to rule that the “Years” mentioned in the 22nd Amendment were Martian years of 780 days each, he’d have some wriggle room, especially when his third term begins with his election to the Vice Presidency and then his near-immediate ascent to the Presidency after the resignation of his patsy candidiate.

[Lemur866]

Look, a key part of your “Is this legal?” question includes a Supreme Court that will declare that it’s all legal. So the President then can happily murder anyone, or quarter soldiers in private homes during peacetime, or whatever. If you hold to the view that the law is whatever the Supreme Court says, if you’ve got a fascist Supreme Court that will declare that Sunday is Friday, then by that definition it is legally Friday.

Of course, that’s nonsense. For a law to be effective, you have to have the consent of the governed. That means the citizenry either has to agree to obey the law, or you use force to make them obey the law. And since in your scenario the citizenry hasn’t turned fascist, and the military isn’t enforcing the President’s orders by force, then no, it wouldn’t be legal.

[Skald_the_Rhymer]

@Pierrot_Le_Fou

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.

I don’t believe the Attorney General has the power or the authority to unilaterally move a case to federal court. Even if the AG opts to charge someone accused of murder (a state crime) with, say, civil rights violations, that does not supersede the individual state’s power to prosecute. And if all this happened, you can bet the state AGs would decline to surrender custody of any hit squad member they ahd arrested.

[Acsenray]

@Pierrot_Le_Fou

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.

@Skald_the_Rhymer

I don’t believe the Attorney General has the power or the authority to unilaterally move a case to federal court.

This is what I was going to say. There is no such power.

[Skald_the_Rhymer]

@acsenray

This is what I was going to say. There is no such power.

See, I KNEW you had both brains & beauty!

[godix]

@Bricker

Sure, except that the hypothetical envisions that the populace will robotically accept the Supreme-Court-Of-One’s rulings. So if the Court were to rule that the “Years” mentioned in the 22nd Amendment were Martian years of 780 days each, he’d have some wriggle room, especially when his third term begins with his election to the Vice Presidency and then his near-immediate ascent to the Presidency after the resignation of his patsy candidiate.

I was going to trash the idea that he is elected to VP then becomes President a third term, but you’re right. Looking at the 22nd, it only limits how many terms a President can be elected to, not how many terms he ascends to office through resignation. I think, but do not know for sure, that you can not be elected to VP if you are unable to be elected to President. However, the line of succession goes beyond VP if the guy really wanted to do this.

Which does bring to mind a question. Ignore the hypothetical of wife as SCOTUS and 2 congressmen and so on. Lets go with a more realistic (but still pretty out there) scenario. Assume Obama gets re-elected in 2012. In 2016 the new President decides he needs Obama’s experience, so Obama becomes Secretary of State. Then that mass terrorist event people fantasize about happens and the President, VP, Speaker of the House, and President pro tempore of the Senate are killed simultaneously. Next in the order of succession is the sec of state. So, under this situation, could Obama serve a third term?

I know currently that when someone who is unqualified to be President (not native born usually) is in a position within the order of succession, they’re just skipped. I don’t know if serving two terms as President would be treated the same though.

[Skald_the_Rhymer]

@godix

I was going to trash the idea that he is elected to VP then becomes President a third term, but you’re right. Looking at the 22nd, it only limits how many terms a President can be elected to, not how many terms he ascends to office through resignation. I think, but do not know for sure, that you can not be elected to VP if you are unable to be elected to President. However, the line of succession goes beyond VP if the guy really wanted to do this.

Which does bring to mind a question. Ignore the hypothetical of wife as SCOTUS and 2 congressmen and so on. Lets go with a more realistic (but still pretty out there) scenario. Assume Obama gets re-elected in 2012. In 2016 the new President decides he needs Obama’s experience, so Obama becomes Secretary of State. Then that mass terrorist event people fantasize about happens and the President, VP, Speaker of the House, and President pro tempore of the Senate are killed simultaneously. Next in the order of succession is the sec of state. So, under this situation, could Obama serve a third term?

I know currently that when someone who is unqualified to be President (not native born usually) is in a position within the order of succession, they’re just skipped. I don’t know if serving two terms as President would be treated the same though.

Here is the text of the twenty-second amendment to the Constitution:

@seriously? Did you not read the line above this one?

Section 1. No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once. But this article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President when this article was proposed by the Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this article becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting as President during the remainder of such term.

Section 2. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of its submission to the States by the Congress.

It says elected to the office, not serve as. But I will leave it to others to interpret this.

[YogSothoth]

Don’t. Give. Tom. Clancy. Any. Ideas.

[Skald_the_Rhymer]

@YogSosoth

Don’t. Give. Tom. Clancy. Any. Ideas.

It is not required of anyone to read Tom Clancy novels.

[handsomeharry]

@Really_Not_All_That_Bright

For the benefit of anyone reading this thread from a black helicopter, let the record show that I am not personally attempting any sort of coup d’etat, legal or otherwise.

We’ll note it. BTW, your right tire is a little low.

Best wishes,
hh

[E-Sabbath]

Don’t you mean:

YOUR RIGHT TIRE IS A LITTLE LOW
I AM TYPING THIS FROM MY SECRETAGENT CAR IN MY DRIVEWAY

[handsomeharry]

@E-Sabbath

Don’t you mean:

YOUR RIGHT TIRE IS A LITTLE LOW
I AM TYPING THIS FROM MY SECRETAGENT CAR IN MY DRIVEWAY

No, E-Sabbath, I meant what I wrote!
Typed from hh’s secretagent car in his driveway

[E-Sabbath]

Ah, your phone with a connection to the internet has been upgraded to include lowercase.

[Captain_Carrot]

It’s legally murky whether someone who has been elected to two terms as President can be elected Vice President. I think most lawyers come down on the side of “beats the hell out of me”, with the remainder fairly evenly split between “can” and “can’t”.

[Acsenray]

I don’t think most lawyers think it’s very murky at all. Regardless of any possible ambiguity in the language, it seems to me pretty well accepted that the intent of the amendments are to say that if you aren’t eligible to be elected president, you also aren’t eligible to be elected vice president.

[BrainGlutton]

@Pierrot_Le_Fou

Could the president, his wife, hit squads, a house member, a senator, and the AG take over America?

:dubious: First things first, please:

What happens when they walk into a bar?