I understand the argument that we don’t want to start a precedent of new administrations going after the previous one. It’s before my time but it seems like Ford’s pardon of Nixon was the right call (slightly different circumstances but close enough).
Trump, though, seems to be so corrupt that letting him get away with it also sets a bad precedent. Going after his political opponents (like with Ukraine) and protecting his cronies is Communist-level corrupt.
Former members of his own cabinet claim he is a threat to the Constitution and yet he still has a chance to win the election in part because of his own interference. We need future presidents to know that if they try to illegally manipulate an election they will pay.
There’s also the fact that Curt Schilling deactivated Twitter yesterday after he took some well-deserved heat for comparing Bubba Wilson to Jussie Smollett. So we don’t have to worry about the America-hating fuckstick’s tweets any more.
Way to go Curt! Nobody really NEEDED Twitter to exist anyway. So, even though you’re a dumbass, you did a good thing by deactivating Twitter.
I understand there’s viable argumentation to be made on both sides of that assertion. I feel that the pardon came WAY too soon. If there was going to be a pardon, it should have been post-conviction, and granted the morning AFTER Nixon reported to prison to serve his sentence.
Are you’re saying that Republicans would open bullshit investigations of Democratic presidents? Because welcome to our timeline.
If you’re suggesting they’d open legitimate investigations, I am all about that. The person it benefits is every American who doesn’t hold political office.
Trump has managed to twist and turn such that he’s immune from any consequences while he’s in office, thanks to his toadying supporters. The precedent he’s setting is appalling. If there’s no adequate response to it, as you say, “it will happen every time a new party assumes power.”
Trump’s sort of grotesquely grasping corruption doesn’t benefit any – wait, it obviously benefits him, so I’m not gonna finish that sentence. But it is to the benefit of everyone else for the next administration to say, “Oh hell no,” and destroy the precedent he’s set.
Perhaps a President Biden could issue a general pardon covering everything Individual-ONE did as president. The point of doing so would be to interpret everything Individual-ONE did, every Executive Order and cabinet level policy, as being illegal. Individual-ONE himself would be immune from prosecution, but no one else (including his family) would be.
The first thing Biden should do is get the keys/creds to that ‘Super Secret’ server that might hold information such as Trumps extortion of Ukraine. What else may he have done?
And then decide how to proceed.
I suspect that most of it will be empty when Biden arrives.
Well, the point is, if Individual-ONE is granted an open-ended pardon for his entire tenure, then the legality of every action he performed as President becomes questionable – including the pardons he issued.
I don’t think the last bit follows. The Constitutional power of the President to grant pardons is absolute. Even if by accepting a pardon he in effect admits that he is the Anti-Christ, it doesn’t affect that basic Constitutional power.
I doubt that much of it is at this point, but at the time of the Ukraine phone call, the white house staff was still being run by people who were more loyal to the US than to Trump, and would ensure that it is preserved, even if it is less publicly accessible than they may desire.
At this point, I doubt that much if anything is added to the server, if the server is still in existence at all.
Create spoilers the same way as we did in the Elder Days.
Put the tag [spoiler] at the beginning and [/spoiler] at the end, and you get this:
Put the tag at the beginning and at the end.
Imho, Biden should only prosecute Trump for things only a President can do. For example, if it were ever found out that a sovereign foreign entity was paying bounties on American soldiers and the one person responsible for directing policy abdicated his responsibility to react, instead committing to actions which would benefit that same entity after the President learned of such bounty…
… in such a scenario I would accept Biden using the federal government to prosecute. But the tax stuff, the Russia 2016 stuff, the Ukraine stuff… no. The government either decided not to prosecute on these matters or, when they did, he was found not guilty. So let that be. Go after him on this bounty stuff, for it is true #TRE45ON.
Actually, the president abdicating his responsibility here is completely legal. I cannot see any court prosecuting the president for this. What he has done (or not done as the case may be) is vile but completely within his job duties and immune from prosecution I would think. Presidents have made seriously distasteful decisions in the past such as president Johnson (I think) sweeping the attack of the USS Liberty by Israeli warplanes under the rug.