Probably a preemptive strike.
Now after Hillary is elected, if any prosecutor (Federal, State, or local*) goes after him for anything, he will immediately scream that “Hillary is behind this attack on me!” and try to fight the prosecution on that basis.
*Actually, even in a private, civil suit brought by any of the women he has preyed upon, he’ll still try to use this excuse.
I will say it.
Trump vowed to use the powers of the presidency to enact revenge upon a political opponent, because she is his political opponent.
This is unconscionable. This is unAmerican. This is evil. Anybody who supports this man has a moral black stain upon their soul and is “American” by nationality only, not in thought, temperment, or belief.
Ok?
Even if there are none, it’s still the intentional targeting of a political opponent for prosecution. That’s still banana-republic territory.
And given his actual words, and the “LOCK HER UP!” chants all the way through the Republican Convention (did Trump’s people ever once try to shut them up, and explain to them about the rule of law?) and those same chants and even worse (“Hang the bitch!”) at Trump’s brownshirt rallies, trying to claim that what Trump and his brownshirts really want is merely a fair investigation of Hillary’s actions by a new prosecutor with an appropriate level of prosecutorial independence from political pressure is just bullshit.
They have stated very clearly the outcome they seek: Hillary in prison (or worse).
This is what he didn’t say, didn’t come close to saying, didn’t imply in any way, shape, or form.
If you take this sentence out, do you still feel like what he said was legal/constitutional? To order the justice department to review one specific case, that of your political opponent?
Because the fig leaf of “review them all, but start with hers” would have been pretty weak tea even if he’d bothered to apply it, **and he didn’t. **
In the end, a portion of it likely comes down to the fact that Trump doesn’t actually know what the president does. Throughout this campaign we’ve seen time and time again that he has no attention span, knows very little about a lot of things, and has no interest in learning more. I don’t think his understanding of the office extends much further than what a hypothetical six-year-old might have - “The president is in charge of the whole country and everybody has to do what he says”.
If you have a child of that age and you asked them what they’d do if they were president, their answers probably wouldn’t be very different from Trump’s. They’d say they would “arrest all the bad guys” or “make a machine that gives everyone food” or something of that nature. And that’s basically Trump’s platform - he’ll fix everything, somehow, just by decreeing that it be done.
That’s not the impression that I got. I think that what he was saying is that once he is elected. the investigations will be allowed to happen unhindered. And the result is that Hillary will go to jail, as she should.
Trump’s intention is not to arrest Clinton for following standard accepted State Department procedures. His intention is not to arrest Clinton for keeping the number of embassy attacks against the US to 1/13 of what they were under her predecessor. His intention is not even to arrest her for murdering Vince Foster and making it look like a suicide. His intention is to arrest her because she opposed him. That’s what’s beyond the pale.
Right – because we don’t need presumption of innocence any more… we need show trials in which the verdict is a foregone conclusion. We don’t need facts like mishandling classified info is never prosecuted for mere carelessness, but rather only if there is deliberate action for profit, for spying, to help a journalism, etc.; we need “facts” like HILLARY IS GUILTY no matter the evidence.
That’ll be the Clintons who have faced decades of investigations by partisan Republicans (at a cost to the taxpayer of well over $100million) with the result of pretty much full exoneration apart from discovering that Bill lied about getting a blowjob, yes? That’ll be the same Hillary Clinton who faced eight Congressional hearings over a consulate attack which killed four Americans despite the previous administration having 13 similar attacks and dozens of Americans killed with no apparent concern from the Republicans (and let’s not even get into Reagan and the Beirut Marine barracks attack), yes?
Remind me again who is getting away with what, exactly. Because the Clintons have had a great deal more scrutiny than most, based on far less justification. You may not like the result, but that doesn’t mean the game was rigged.
Trump of course will not get the chance to follow through on his threat. Winning an election and jailing your opponent isn’t a hallmark of a healthy democracy. I have no doubt that Bricker’s scenario #2 is perfectly legal, and I also have no doubt that single paragraph contained more thought than has been processed through the brain of Donald Trump in his seven decades of life.
As a SuperPatriot, you should be fucking terrified at the thought of an authoritarian like Trump being in power.
Unless you think you’re in The Correct Group Of People.
And whether this was an offhand line at the time, Trump’s fully embraced it, tweeting a big pic with a “she would be in jail” caption early yesterday, and saying, “Yeah, ‘lock her up’ is right” in his speech at Wilkes-Barre later yesterday.
And I repeat: ‘locking her up’ is a potential outcome of an unbiased investigation, if its findings warrant prosecution. But Trump has already decided what the outcome should be: his opponent should be imprisoned.
This is America, dammit, not some gorram banana republic. I’m about the least patriotic person I know, but this is bringing out the patriot in me.
Even this overly charitable spin has legal problems:
If Trump chose this course because Clinton was his political opponent–and I think there’s pretty good evidence for that argument–then she has a First Amendment defense. It is not well-settled, but it just cannot be that you can exercise prosecutorial discretion based on which political opinions you dislike. (You could also pursue it as an equal protection “class of one” argument, but it would probably be stronger as a First Amendment claim.) It would be unconstitutional for the same reason that an order to target Republicans for prosecution would be unconstitutional.
Ditto above, but raised as a due process argument. Slightly different legal foundations, but fundamentally the same problem.
Directing the AG to carry out a particular prosecution raises issues about the customary lines between the executive and independent prosecutors. This stuff is mostly customary rather than legal, but that’s in large part because it has never had to be tested. There is a colorable argument for it presenting a kind of due process or separation of powers problem–especially since it would be a violation of the AG’s professional ethical obligations as a prosecutor to follow such an order.
Naturally, these are just technical legal issues. There is bipartisan near-consensus that such a move would tear the fabric of important democratic customs.
The investigations were unhindered, they just reached to a conclusion that you don’t like. The thing you should be most concerned with is if you don’t speak out when they go after Hillary, will there be anyone left to speak up when they go after you?
While DJT will never be President, I can entertain the hypothetical long enough to suppose that General Case #2 is a plausible outcome of an order given by Trump to, say, John Yoo, to find a way to put Secretary Clinton behind bars.
Not sure. If we postulate that a set of Alien Brain Parasites could somehow improve cognition…
Obviously my second scenario is what serious observers would call “fanciful,” in terms of likelihood.
I bet rudy giuliani is salivating at his chance of becoming the special prosecutor.
I’ve seen more accurate impressions gotten from rock-hard Silly Putty.
You appear to be implying that the investigations that have already happened were hindered.
It is to laugh.
So, if you were his lawyer you would put forth scenario #2, but if this were a bar bet you would stake your next shot of Talisker 30 yr. old single malt on scenario #1? 