Trump was the result of mass democracy, rather than sophisticated enlightenment electors trying to consider the good of the country as a whole.
The drafters may have been onto something… 
No, Trump was the result of a system that gives rural white people a disproportionate amount of votes. I am a rural white person and I think this is a bad system. As evidenced by the fact that it gave us the presidencies of George W. Bush and Donald Trump.
Which when locally exposed to the trappings of populist democracy, has a runaway multiplier effect. Things work together and vulnerabilities get exploited.
But back to the point, yes, the Framers assumed that the competitive branches would swiftly act to stop one another and prevent the swelling of power. And further, that the actual power would be in the hands of gentlemen of quality such as they fancied themselves. I suppose that in case of the rise of a scoundrel they expected to see either swift impeachment, or popular revolt, or that before he got too far someone who’s a far faster, sharper shooter or swordsman would demand his presence by the river in the morning.
Also, they probably expected that “crimes against the United States” would be relatively few and far between, the federal structure being at the time relatively small and unobtrusive.
This was their mistake. They were not unaware of the politics of legislatures and must have known that partisan impeachments would be problematic, but that was the only relief valve they provided (we now have the 25th as well but not meant to address these issues). We can clearly see too much unregulated power conferred to the executive, with only minor ability to reliably change that without amending the constitution.
I think the thing the framers didn’t foresee was the rise of political parties. They assumed each President, Congressman, and Supreme Court Justice would act as an individual agent. So a person like Donald Trump would have no allies and would be judged on his personal traits.
Political parties gave people like this a hiding place. People now support somebody like Trump because he’s a member of their party and they don’t want to weaken the party by attacking a member.
IANAL. Interesting theory: if Trump pardoned someone, that person can’t plead the fifth because they won’t be incriminating themselves…?
The law review channel Legal Eagle just published a video discussing these pardons.
To be honest, this episode is a little light on procedural details compared to normal Legal Eagle videos, it’s more of a rant. But I guess there is little to be done in this case. He covers a little of what might happen next towards the end of the video.
If you are found guilty of a thing, there is no way to incriminate yourself on that matter because the law has recorded your guilt. Accepting a pardon was ruled to be equivalent to an admission of guilt about a century ago. If there is no potential jeopardy arises from your testimony, you cannot refuse to testify.
Michael Cohen’s running around telling this to everyone who will listen, but I don’t think it’s a clear cut as he suggests. There’s something to it – a person cannot invoke their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination if their testimony cannot be used to criminally prosecute them. That’s why a prosecutor can compel a witness to testify by granting them immunity from prosecution. The witness has no Fifth Amendment right to decline to testify against the defendant, even if his testimony would implicate himself in criminal activity, because the grant of immunity means that he’s in no jeopardy of his testimony being used against him.
Theoretically a pardon can have the same effect: if the individual has been pardoned and cannot be prosecuted, he has no basis for a Fifth Amendment claim if subpoenaed to testify against a co-conspirator. BUT, I think this will hinge on what specifically the pardon says. An individual can be pardoned of specific CRIMES for which they were convicted, or more broadly for ACTS that could lead to criminal prosecution. If the pardon is limited to the individual’s conviction of a specific crime, but the circumstances that led to his conviction could support his prosecution for another crime, he would have a Fifth Amendment right to refuse to testify.
I’m not aware of any instance in which a prosecutor has attempted to use a pardon as a basis to compel an individual’s testimony, so hey, fun new legal ground should we get to that point.
This is true but it’s not a major issue in this situation. Trump is pardoning people like Flynn, Manafort, and Stone. And he will theoretically pardon other members of his administration, including himself, before leaving office.
These people aren’t being pardoned for drug possession or murder. They’re being pardoned for crimes they committed to further Trump’s political career. And once they’ve been pardoned for those crimes, they can’t refuse to testify about them on Fifth Amendment grounds. And these are the crimes that implicate Trump.
If people put Roger Stone on the stand, for example, they’re going to be asking him about what conversations he had with Trump regarding Russian assistance to his 2016 campaign. They’re not going to be asking him if he drove over the speed limit on the way to the meeting.
That case is rather doubtful.
But yeah, if you cant be charged with a crime, if given a pardon or immunity whatever, then you cant plead the 5th. We used that in the Grand Jury. Mind you, if a possibility remains of a State indictment, which a Federal Pardon doesnt erase, then yes, you can plead the 5th.
I’m crossing my fingers for the checks and balances to kick in. I guess it follows that the pardon means they got away with it…but if they are required to testify, they can A) tell the truth, or B) risk a charge of perjury.
I just don’t think it’s that simple. The conduct that any prosecutor would want Roger Stone to testify about could likely sustain a dozen different charges in addition to the specific crimes he was convicted of. He was convicted of obstructing proceedings, making false statements and witness tampering in regard to the Mueller investigation – but NOT of any underlying crime regarding his interactions with Wikileaks and the Russians. So if he testifies about how he helped Trump collude with Russian agents to impact the election, he could be opening himself up to charges like conspiracy and campaign finance violations. Because his pardon as written only covers the crimes of which he was convicted, he has a Fifth Amendment right to refuse to testify.
In short, I think that there would need to be an additional grant of immunity against prosecution for any other crimes arising from his testimony in order to compel him.