He’s being told by his own, well regarded party members that the President of the United States must be a Moral Center for the nation and must not engage in these kinds of things.
Then he threatens and foments violence.
We do indeed have to be patient with the Mueller investigation. The Watergate break in was in June 1972, almost five months before the election. Nixon did not resign until August of 1974, over 2 years later. Up until that time he was doing exactly what Trump and his people are doing, declaring it a fake story and demanding that the nation move on.
Meuller has a good solid reputation, for honesty and competence. He’s been very quiet lately. That means he’s been very busy finding things they didn’t want him to find. And Dumb Ass saying his own finances were off limits told him exactly where to look If I was a Trump crony, I’d be seriously thinking about turning and saving my own neck. Especially seeing how Trump is attacking all his “friends” anyway.
And if Meuller can’t nail him at the federal level, New York state is looking too. Looking at the money trail. The “off limits thing”
Something I’ve been wondering: If he pardons himself for some criminal activity that is a crime at both the federal and state level, does the federal pardon create in effect a state pardon?
I don’t think he cheated on his taxes (although I guess it’s possible). Suppose he pardoned himself for tax evasion. In Illinois, state income taxes are based in part on data supplied on the federal form, and indeed Illinois taxpayers have to include a copy of part of the 1040 with the state return. I suspect this is true in NY too. Can he still be prosecuted by NY for tax evasion based on the evidence shown in his US 1040? Does a pardon mean no crime was committed, or that the crime was committed but is being ignored?
Absolutely not, the President only has the power to pardon federal crimes.
A federal pardon means that no federal crime was committed, it doesn’t mean that the actions didn’t happen. To convict someone of a crime, you have to prove that the elements of a crime happened. If NY tax law says ‘you’re guilty of tax evasion in this state if you submit a tax return to us that was ruled tax evasion by the feds’, he’s clean since he isn’t guilty of federal tax evasion. But most (all?) state laws like this don’t rely on a federal crime in any way - if nothing else, waiting on the feds to convict (if they even bother) before pursuing state income tax evasion would delay proceedings a lot. Typically state laws say something like ‘if you provide false information about your finances and pay less tax than if you provided true information, you’re guilty of tax evasion’, which doesn’t run into any problem with the federal pardon since it doesn’t care if a federal crime was committed or not.
Apparently Preet Bharara was heavily focused on investigating Trump’s finances when he, and all other US Attorneys, were fired (none have been replaced). So, he’s had nothing better to do for the last few months …
You may have posted the answer to your ‘in blue’ question, there just above (in red). Trump, as unhinged as he has been, seems to be going in the direction of actually calling for violence. He may well make utterances that meet the Brandenburg standard:
That’s a crime. And with all this talk about what Trump might pardon himself for, it’s still not established that he can pardon himself. Maybe he can, maybe he can’t.
If it happens, Ryan and McConnell will have a major challenge in performing their usual ‘scold in general terms then pretend it never happened’ maneuver.
I knew when I posted I probably wasn’t stating it too clearly.
IANAL but I’ve watched a bazillion episodes of Law & Order. Every now and then they have a case where the perp could be tried in either federal court or New York court. ISTR that they occasionally make a point of saying that if the crime is charged in federal court and the perp is acquitted, they can’t retry him at the state level because jeopardy has attached. If the feds cut a deal with him for his testimony in some other case and lets him walk (i.e., plead guilty but get no sentence) on the crime in question, he goes free.
I think you’re saying that when someone is pardoned before being tried, jeopardy has never attached so (assuming his actions were crimes in that state) he could be tried at the state level. Does this mean that if Trump pardons Arpaio for what he was convicted for in federal court, Arizona has to find other charges to try him for? (I’m under the impression that may not be all that hard.) But if Trump pardons him for any and all criminal activity he may have committed, Arizona can still try him for anything he wasn’t convicted of in federal court?
I’m not an expert in Federal vs State double jeopardy, you might want to ask a GQ question and get someone like Bricker to talk about it more if you want to find specific differences. But in this case, it’s pretty cut and dried - there’s no problem with double jeopardy, because you’re talking about two completely distinct crimes that rely on different facts. One is providing false information to the IRS, the other is providing false information to NY tax authorities. The key element of the crime is a completely different thing, even though both might get commonly called tax evasion, so I don’t see how you could get a double jeopardy problem.
I also think you may be exaggerating or misremembering how many state vs federal L&O cases involve double jeopardy, IIRC that was usually more a problem in trying to decide which NY prosecutor got to try someone. Federal and State don’t have a lot of double jeopardy issues IRL I think.
That’s the other problem, double jeopardy only stops the government from trying someone for the same crime multiple times and attaches at trial. The more specific examples you’d need a lawyer to answer, and I’m not sure that they can - pardons are an unusual piece of law and usually there’s not a lot of trying to get around them.
Probably a Bricker question, but to my knowledge, that is not necessarily true. IFIAK, the concept of double jeopardy applies to one jurisdiction at a time. Different jurisdictions have statutes, different definitions, rules of criminal procedure, etc. Federal crimes and state crimes, even if the technical charges are the same, are considered different, constitutionally speaking.
Not sure why this is in this thread, but those would be two different crimes. Federal tax evasion, and state tax evasion. Potentially more than one, depending on where the companies are based. More likely we’re talking money laundering at several levels in addition.
If I was a Trump crony, I’d be seriously thinking about turning and saving my own neck. Especially seeing how Trump is attacking all his “friends” anyway.