No, but the country is not ruined forever.
“No, but God knows we keep trying.”
— Harvey Milk
Or may have just been a quote from the movie.
If we set the bar THAT low, it could put everyone who votes for a Republican (for ANYTHING) in jeopardy of losing life, liberty and property…
Y’know, I’m usually one of the people who’s quoting that Constitutional definition of treason, and pointing out that it doesn’t apply. And in fact, Trump’s obstruction of justice, sexual assaults, terrorist threats, incitements to violence, tax evasion, frauds, violations of immigration law, and (just recently) falsification of National Weather Service data, along with most of his other crimes, are not treason.
In addition to all of those non-treason crimes, however, we also have that he’s cooperated with a foreign country in the commission of acts that that foreign country has officially described as acts of war. That is, in fact, aiding and abetting an enemy, by any sane definition. So yes, Trump has committed treason.
Sounds good to me.
Getting back on topic – seeing as it has been pretty much ignored from the second post on – the President’s pardon power is effectively unlimited (with the possible exception of pardoning himself, which has never been addressed by the Supreme Court). This has been ruled on many times. If Trump decides to pardon every person in his administration, or who ever was in his administration, plus Antonio Brown and Bernie Madoff, even at 11:59 AM on the day the next President is sworn in, it is completely legal and subject to no oversight. Many other Presidents have issued controversial last-minute pardons (eg: Marc Rich); it is almost routine.
Whether or not this is a Good Thing, on the other hand, is an entirely different question.
Yes, pretty much so. I suspect his ability to pardon himself will indeed be tested in court. Of course the Good Courts of The States can just laugh at the pardons and say “Begone! You have no power here!”
Whether he has committed “treason” or not, he is not going to be convicted of treason. Jesus Christ people.
The fact that you think all of this can be summed up as “orange man bad” really shows just how little you’ve been paying attention.
It probably won’t be. The Justice Department has decided to take the stance that he can’t even be indicted (at least on federal charges) while he’s in office. And after he’s out of office, when Justice might be willing to pursue cases against him, he won’t have any pardon power at all any more. The only way it could come up would be if, right before he leaves office, he pardons himself for “all of the crimes I have committed”, but that would mean Trump admitting that he’d done wrong, which I can’t see him doing, not even to save his own skin.
Trump 2020: It wasn’t technically Treason!
And its my preference that we not elect criminals who break laws in order to settle political disputes, which is also not healthy for the country, but we don’t always get what we want.
You might be right. I can’t argue with your logic. I think it all depends on whether he can objectively process the pile of shit that he’s at the bottom of. If I was him I might say “My number one job is to keep myself out of prison, so right before the door hits me in the butt I’m going to pardon myself. Maybe it works and maybe it won’t, but it won’t hurt me.” Or he might say “I didn’t do nothing wrong! Fake news! I don’t need no steenking pardon!” So he may or he may not pardon himself. I’m betting that Ivanka talks him into it: “Daddy, I can’t bear to see you go to jail. Make it stop!”
At the federal level. He has no immunity from the State of New York.
Here is the wording from Nixon’s pardon:
Notice the “or may have committed”? Doesn’t seem to me like Nixon had to admit that he’d done wrong. What’s to prevent President Trump from writing a pardon along the lines of “I grant a full, free, and absolute pardon unto myself for all offenses against the United States which I may be accused of having committed prior to noon on Jan. 20, 2024”?
“You better not, or else we’ll burn our own cities down”
shrug
"…offenses against the United States which he, Richard Nixon, has committed… "
I like this part.
We’re the Good Guys, we follow the law.
The main problem I see with this is, I would expect that Trump would pardon all of his family members and cronies on January 19, 2021 (or 2025, if he manages to get re-elected - after 2016, I try not to add words like “somehow” to statements like that). You are not going to get a court to say that the pardons are invalid.
As for Trump himself, he’d probably fly to France and hide behind Roman Polanski; he seems to know how to keep from being dragged back to the USA for trial - he even managed to win an Oscar while doing it!
From the trivia desk: This Wikipedia page shows 14 persons convicted of treason against the United States or one of its states. (Five of the 14 were subsequently pardoned or had their conviction annulled.) Is this a complete list?
The list contains three names I recognize: Tokyo Rose, Axis Sally, and John Brown of Osawatomie. Three of the 14 were convicted of treason against a state, rather than against the United States: Governor Dorr (conviction later annulled), leader of a Rhode Island Suffrage movement; John Brown the Martyr (convicted by Virginia); and one of Brown’s soldiers.