I thought I would split this question off from the impeachment trial follow-along thread. It’s looking pretty certain that Republicans will vote to acquit Trump a second time. So then what happens?
After the vote to convict or acquit, then they are planning a 14th Amendment vote to bar him from holding public office again, correct?
Republicans argue that since he is out office he can’t be impeached/convicted. So will Biden’s Justice Dept file Federal charges against him? Will Trump be tried in a court of law for his actions leading up to Jan 6th? Are there any charges that the District of Columbia can file against him?
What should happen is that the media ignores Donald Trump’s personal affairs and bluster while the Southern District of New York continues to investigate Trump and his family on his various fraudulent and racketeering enterprises while the Democratic district attorney in Fulton County, Georgia brings charges against Trump for election interference, and the residents of Palm Beach, Florida sue Trump to prevent him from establishing residence in Mar-A-Lago like some cut rate Bond villain. I’d also like to see the unredacted Mueller report and the intelligence information that caused John Brennan to make such dire warnings about Russian election interference in the 2016 election.
What will really happen: the media (particularly CNN and MSNBC) will continue to give free air time to Donald Trump et al and his clown car of curiosities and covering his every verbal bowel movement because like a battered spouse who keeps going back, they just can’t get enough of his love even as he belittles and slanders them. I doubt Trump himself will actually try to rerun for President (and certainly not any “lower” office) because he isn’t really interested in the job save for the attention it gets him, but the Trump Spawn will leverage the celebrity to commence on their own political ambitions, all of which will fail uproariously except for Ivanka, who will likely become the 47th Governor of Florida or will displace “Little Marco” Rubio as the junior Senator. Nothing else of any consequence will occur except that Trump will stir up shit and encourage political violence to feed his delicate eco to no clear goal or end.
I guess my question in the OP wasn’t clear - I meant specifically in regards to the events of Jan 6. I realize a number of states are going to be investigating him and hopefully filing charges for other crimes, and it seems that we have enough general discussion of what happens with Trump in other threads.
the 14th Amendment has nothing to do with it. It is about giving citizenship rights and equal protection under the law.
You may be thinking of the 25th Amendment, where a sitting President can be removed for incapacity to perform his duties.
This only applies to a sitting president, and it’s the VP and cabinet that votes to remove him. The Senate has nothing to do with it. That ship has sailed. Too late to do it now.
IF they convict Trump in the Senate trial , then they can vote on the penalty. This can include barring him from future office. But they will need to convict first. They can’t vote on that if he is acquitted.
There is already an investigation in progress in Georgia about his attempts to overturn the election in that state. Criminal prosecution may follow. I would certainly hope there will be investigations for his other crimes.
Probably not. “Inciting a riot” is a difficult thing to prove if the person accused of doing so wasn’t responsible for any planning or coordination and didn’t participate in the riot itself. If Trump could recruit a half-competent lawyer (which is itself an open question), they could make the case that what he said was politically protected speech and that he had a genuine belief that the electoral process had been subverted (despite there being no evidence for that view), and that he was just encouraging citizens to voice their concerns to their respective elected representatives in Congress.
I have been trying to work through the practical goals the Dems might be aiming for in a seemingly pointless impeachment and acquittal. Here’s the best I could come up with (in no particular order)
Demonstrate to Trump and his followers, yet again, that we’re willing to drag his wrongdoing through the mud, even if he gets acquitted. He fears exposure as a failure and a fraud as much as jail, I think. It’s good to keep that reminder permanently on his radar.
Keeps Jan 6th in the news cycle, which should weaken Republicans.
This generates tons of material for 2022 attack ads.
Repubs must now reckon with the fact that Trump may run again. Some will be content to hide under his skirts forever, but some of them want to be President. They might be amenable to less-overt ways to knock Trump out of public office.
Tacit authorization of a criminal probe. Senate Repubs seem to be going with the message “this is a criminal matter, not political”. I don’t think they actually want that, but there’s nowhere left to pass the buck than the DOJ.
Reveals public opinion against Trump to any R senators who have kept their heads in the Fox news bubble.
We establish a precedent that Biden can more or less do what he wants between Jan 6th and Jan 20th, free of accountability.
The whole thing seems like kind of an opaque investment to me. Although I agree that someone needs to be the hall monitor of democracy, and only Democrats are willing to do it, it is not at all clear to me that this is going to improve the state of governance or Democrats’ electoral prospects.
OK maybe not 14th amendment, although I thought that’s what I’ve heard referenced. I’ve heard that there will be a separate vote in the Senate to prevent him from holding office in the future, that only requires a simple majority not the two-thirds needed for the impeachment conviction. I’m not thinking of the 25th, that allows the VP and Cabinet to take action to remove him from office.
It is futile and for any practical purpose, pointless. It is also necessary because even if Trump and his facilitators will not actually be held to legal account, it makes the point that what was done will not be forgotten or swept away as a footnote. Trump will be recorded in history books as the first US President to be impeached twice, and the first to be impeached for inciting a riot that attacked Congress during confirmation of the electoral process, hopefully quoting Mitt Romney’s condemnation of “a selfish man’s injured pride”. His name will be spoken in hallowed tones along with Harding, Johnson, Taylor, and Nixon.
Yes, but the big point is that vote can only happen after Trump is convicted. If Trump is acquitted by the Senate, which seems likely, they can’t hold that vote.
Ok thanks for the clarification. I was under the impression that it was a course of action they could take even if he wasn’t convicted. I thought if he was convicted he was automatically prevented from ever holding public office again.
This is such a BS line of defense. First, there’s ample evidence that the Constitution works according to the principle that if it’s not restricted, then it’s allowed by default. The idea that it’s not allowed because it’s not called out specifically is absurd.
Second, the actual wording of the impeachment part of the Constitution is:
Blockquote Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.
So the idea that impeaching him after he leaves office makes total sense if the goal is to disqualify him from holding or enjoying any office of honor, trust or profit for the US. Which is almost certainly the point here- if he can be barred from holding office, it would tend to draw his fangs and those of his movement a fair bit, I suspect.
So when the Republican Senators vote acquittal later this week (as they surely will), what they are saying, in efffect, is “Mr. Trump sir, we love you and we want you to run again”
At least this is how Trump and his supporters will spin it.
And be able to raise campaign contributions, this is key. If Trump isn’t convicted and can runt again (which he already announced he would), he will be able to amass another huge war chest in which to fund another campaign. A campaign against democracy. This is why he needs to be convicted.
I doubt that the Senate can ban someone from serving again. They might be able to ban him from serving in the Senate indefinitely, but it would probably require a criminal conviction on insurrection to bar him on 14th Amendment grounds. Otherwise, what’s keeping from GOP majorities from barring pretty much every democrat ever from serving in federal office in the future?
Talking about what Trump did in office isn’t really giving him free press. I’m talking about actually seeing Trump or hearing what he has to say currently.
