“Your honor, the funds are not “impounded”, they’re merely being held pending a review of spending priorities, a perfectly normal function of government, that of course routinely takes more than a year.”
Oh, and:
Title X of the Act, also known as the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 , specifies that the president may request that Congress rescind appropriated funds. If both the Senate and the House of Representatives have not approved a rescission proposal (by passing legislation) within forty-five days of continuous session, any funds being withheld must be made available for obligation.
And here is point all of you are forgetting - Trump and his team are not competent enough to pull any of this off even if it were possible. Ignoring the failed insurrection for a second. Where is the wall across the border that Mexico was going to pay for? Why was Hillary never indicted? How come those “missing votes” in Georgia were never found?
I mean what sort of mastermind do you think Trump in that he has built up this network over the last 8 years (4 of which the Presidency was held by Biden) that will give him unlimited power, his first 4 years were making test runs to see where the weaknesses were (like Pence) and now the trap is ready to be sprung in a manner that makes Admiral Thrawn look like General Percival.
Let’s look at the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution. It says that a president is not allowed to financially benefit from being president. It’s a law and a pretty important one (well, used to be). The director of the department that oversees this law (Walter Shaub) resigned from that post only 7 months after Trump took office in 2017. He said that department was already overwhelmed by complaints of Trump breaking that law. I believe there was a hearing or investigation at some point that proved this was happening but then nothing ever came of it. And Trump kept financially benefiting until the day he left office.
He violated the Constitution blatantly and right out in public. No consequences.
Very badly, I expect, but they haven’t cared about that before, and until you replace them (how?), that ruling stands as the law of the land.
“We find that President Trump has made a compelling loud shout about immigrants stealing elections. It is a proper function of government to secure the validity of the vote by any means necessary. Until such a time as it can be guaranteed that there are no more immigrants striving to steal our votes, the elections are held in abeyance. Lord Commander of all the Vaginas Trump, as the last properly elected president is granted the title of Dicktater for the duration of this open-ended crisis.”
And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.
Your reading is incomplete. Congress can approve the emoluments.
Then so has every other President because they all have received gifts from foreign governments … as long as you ignore the “Consent of the Congress” part.
And you’re ignoring that the alleged violations of the Emoluments Clause were pretty weak. They boiled down to
Trump owns a hotel
A foreign prince paid to stay at the hotel
Therefore Trump made money through that business from a foreign power
And thus Trump violated the Emoluments Clause.
Maybe you’re missing the point of what we’re saying.
We’re saying that Trump will break a lot of laws and not have to face any legal consequences for breaking those laws. He will not be arrested; he will not be imprisoned; he will not be impeached.
Nobody is saying that Trump will succeed in his illegal endeavors. But that’s not because he will face legal consequences. He will not succeed because he is stupid and lazy and incompetent. And most of his followers are worse. Donald Trump will have to face the consequences of being Donald Trump.
The January 6 insurrection didn’t fail because of any legal action. It failed because it was a campaign of idiots being led by their idiot king.
It isn’t Trump that did the heavy lifting. The Project 2025 guys have spent years planning this, and they know that Trump is their best shot at getting what they want. Those guys have known for four years now that Trump was almost certainly going to be the candidate this year, and I’d bet lots of money that they have binders full of women plans for manipulating Trump.
Take a look at the Federalist Society. They’re like the polite version of P2025. They’ve spent decades getting hard-right leaning judges into lifetime positions, and they used Trump to do exactly that again. Trump doesn’t really care, so he just gave them what they wanted. And now those people are in positions of real power, and know who they owe it to. They know that Trump is the useful tool of the day, and they’ll do whatever it takes to keep him in office.
Shit like this has already happened, even when Trump wasn’t in power. The documents case was dragged out for years, because a Trump-appointed judge let Trump play his games. The Supreme Court gave a ruling that put Trump above the law, even for criminal acts. Oh, sure, they “tempered” the decision with some bland suggestions about “official” vs “unofficial”, but those parts were sufficiently vague that, next time this issue shows up in their court, there’s enough wiggle room to let Trump off the hook again.
And I’m not disagreeing with that. My disagreement is with people that say he will willingly violate the Constitution, eliminate elections and appoint himself Dear Leader for life. Hunt Pelosi or Hillary or Liz Cheney on a private ranch for sport. IOW the absolute hyperbole of what Trump is claimed to going to do.
Except he didn’t It was claimed that he did but you left out a key part that Congress can approve emoluments AND that what was claimed was probably not an emolument as it was done as an ordinary business transaction and not a direct gift.
This article gives an excellent history of it. In short, nobody really wanted to deal with it. It was only a problem with Trump because he did not put his businesses in a blind trust or divest himself of them during his Presidency. The article implies that the issue was who has standing to sue over violations. I don’t think Congress wanted to get involved with writing a law since it worked for over 200 years. And I don’t think it’s a Trump thing. This is a Congress that could easily fix the Yellowstone Zone of Death (another Constitutional issue that never comes up) but doesn’t because it has never been an issue. And that’s the thing, emoluments are handled on an ad-hoc basic and sometimes a President will get Congressional approval but many times not and Congress hasn’t put in a way to enforce it. I guess impeachment is an option.
IIRC the issue was there are no prescribed penalties for breaking the Emoluments Clause. Trump could be found guilty of the most flagrant violations and…then what?
Presumably the solution is impeachment but that didn’t work.
That’s not the only issue. Let’s say as President Whack-a-Mole you own part of Hyatt Regency. King Charles decided to stay there and paid in full. Did you just receive an emolument?