Let’s say four years from now a 77-year old Mr. Clinton/Mr. Bush/Mr. Trump develops dementia and starts telling everybody about all the secret programs he worked on as President. How far should the next administration go to keep him quiet?
Not sure if there’s a precedent with Mr. Reagan, as I haven’t read any of his memoirs or those of his family I don’t know if he had a tendency to start talking about sensitive information.
~Max
Is there any reason the legal system wouldn’t be able handle it? If he is genuinely insane and unable to control himself, commitment to a secure psychiatric facility would also be an option, no?
ETA: Because the information is either classified, in which case it’s nominally a crime, or it’s not, in which case who cares?
Well, you can’t commit a person against their will unless they have a mental condition and they are either physically dangerous to themselves or others, or unable to care for themselves and not receiving proper care. So that won’t work unless there’s more going on, or the ex-president agrees to it.
And criminal liability requires a culpable mental state. So if Ex-Pres., say, thinks he’s speaking to the Joint Chiefs, or whatever, there may not be anything to do from the criminal side.
It seems like it might take some creativity. I guess the first idea is most likely to work, if someone else had authority to direct his healthcare. But that requires setting it up during a time of clarity.
Former presidents still have Secret Service protection. I think the most likely thing, at least at first, would be a quiet back-channel word from the White House to the elderly gentleman’s protective detail.
If the agents are unable or unwilling to control the situation, Congress has the option of getting involved. They could appropriate money to build a nice, secure, one-occupant nursing home. Whether they would depends on the situation.
Hypothetically?
He said ex-president. It has been firmly established that current presidents can blab state secrets all they want without consequence.
I don’t know how typical this is, but when my grandmother was in the early stages of dementia, she used to tell everyone about how my grandfather was chasing a robber over the rooftops of their old home in Queens, got shot, and died in her arms. She was amazingly persistent in this story, and repeated it for months. My grandfather had, in fact, died of heart failure in a hospital in Virginia at the age of 93.
If this is how dementia normally works (and again, I’m far from an expert), I doubt that an ex-president with it would be a serious security threat, since it would be impossible to tell how much of what he was saying was true or partly true, and how much of it was totally confabulated.
I was thinking the first line of defense would be his spouse and SS detail, either finding treatment or retiring to some remote location, limiting visitors, making sure someone is there at all times to stop a conversation if things get out of hand…
~Max
Hypothetically, a tragic accident might occur.
Yeah, this. Ain’t nobody gonna get close enough to President Poopy-pants to hear a word of his demented ramblings. It’s not like he’s wandering around the mall shouting at invisible flying cats.
Are you aware that Trump posts stuff on Twitter 20-40 times per day?
Do you think he won’t have an iPhone when he stops being President? (I mean, apart from the best-case scenario in which he’s forced to surrender that, along with his belt and shoestrings.
Unfortunately, yes. :smack: But I don’t read them.
What do you think the agents can do? What do you think they should do?
I’m interested because I’ve never heard of someone actively promoting “back-channel” extra-judicial silencing of an American citizen.
Yep, I totally agree.
A former President who just decides to leak classified information would just be arrested, like any other person making an unauthorized disclosure.
There wouldn’t be any Secret Service hijinx, no relegation to a black site, no tampering with Twitter or iPhones, no insane asylums. Just arrest and prosecution.
If an ex-President wouldn’t shut up after arrest and conviction, they would probably end up in solitary confinement somewhere so they have very limited ability to speak to the outside world. Just like any other person convicted of the same crime.
Brutal infringement of anti-state speech. Such is the treatment of actual whistleblowers under the current regime. See Manning, Snowden, Binney, etc.
I think if he’s got dementia, he could tweet all day on a Fisher Price “phone” and never know the difference.
It would be restricted visitors and 24-hour at home medical care.
Nm. Not taking the obvious bait.
We’ve had only one person in the White House who would ever dream of such a thing. Fortunately, he has never read an intelligence briefing to date and is unlikely to start, so any intelligence he would share would be what- Hillary’s email server?
Are you willing to assume for the hypothetical that the ex-President is afflicted with dementia and frequently misinterprets his surroundings as a top-secret briefing with intelligence officers? Let’s say his personal physician has a strong diagnosis and recommends a full-time caregiver, regular mental exercises, etc.
I was thinking this caregiver, which could be his wife, should be at his side to remind him that he’s not talking with intelligence officers but with the local girl scout troop. And then she, he (when lucid), and the security detail would work it out to minimize public exposure and visitors.
~Max
I would pay to see that(the flying cats that is)