Altering NOAA’s hurricane map, 18 U.S. Code § 2074
Please consider that you might be coming off as a tad aggressive here. I never intended to suggest tu quoque as a defense. The intent of my post was not to excuse any of his behavior, but instead, to suggest the ambiguities involved.
You also did not quote the portion of my post where I suggested you could get the information you required from discussions of the state litigation, or that violation of his oath might be a sufficient violation.
Sorry you did not find my post to be exactly what you wished.
Sorry. Anything involving Trump is a contentious issue; and as you can see in this thread, I’m trying not to let it turn into a debate. I don’t think there is any ambiguity in the OP.
I posted the alleged violations I could think of, and cited the sections of the U.S. Constitution and the U.S. Code. I wouldn’t even know where to look for New York State law, but I’m mostly interested in Federal law. I did not mention (nor was I thinking of) impeachment. 'High crimes and misdemeanors ’ are what Congress says they are. Given that, a violation of the Oath of Office could be defined as a ‘High crimes or misdemeanor’. But is there a statute that makes an Oath violation a crime? 18 U.S. Code § 2381, Treason, seems a little tenuous. Further, the allegations I posted were the ones I thought of. Dung Beetle’s mention of altering NOAA charts didn’t occur to me. I’m looking for things like that, which I don’t already know.
Well, on the charging of the Secret Service, apparently they have to pay Mar-A-Lago every time he goes there. And since he didn’t step aside from his ownership, he’s basically making the government pay him when he uses that facility.
Shady to an extreme.
You’ve heard about Turnberrytoo, right?
I’ve no doubt that the sociopathic oaf is a heinous criminal. BUT, if the charges are of this ilk — however “correct” legally — isn’t there risk Trump’s attorneys will choose the Giggle and Chortle Defence?
I had not. That’s not quite as sketchy, as the agreement for the USAF personnel to stay there was made prior to his administration. But the fact of the matter remains that he makes money off of regular government business, which is very grifter-ly.
Keep in mind that the constitution says impeachment is for “high crimes and misdemeanours” but does not define them or the terms used. The general thought is that for impeachment, it means that whatever congress calls a high crime or a misdemeanour - it is.
One commentator I read (during Clinton’s impeachment) says that the impeachment of Johnson was a head-butting contest which congress lost (by one vote). Had they succeeded, it would have been a standard political tool to do an election do-over; but since it failed, it has been regarded as only addressing matters of extreme seriousness in the execution of presidential duties.
The crime Nixon was to be impeached for was obstruction of justice - firing the guy looking into his crimes and red-handed evidence he conspired with his minions to obstruct justice in that regard. he knew about the break-in and tried to prevent it from being fully investigated.
There’s the argument going around now that putting the phone call transcript into the classified national security archive - which has severely limited access rights -when there is nothing of a national security nature about it was an attempt to obstruct justice. Hiding evidence that could be required for an investigation is obstruction.
Telling witnesses to plead Executive Privilege when there is no legal grounds for it is also witness tampering and obstruction of justice… as is making threats if the courts deem them to be sufficiently obvious.
On the pee tape? His coup de grace to that hotel mattress was to remove the label, which is punishable by law. I would read the label on my own mattress to cite the exact law, but it’s unaccountably missing.
This is probably the only factual answer, as of this date. (Although there is certainly evidence of other crimes).
Trump is an un-indicted co-conspirator in campaign finance law violations for which Michael Cohen is currently doing time. It is indisputable that Trump participated, and the only reason he has not been charged is that he’s the President.
John Edwards was facing 30 years in prison for doing the same thing (misuing campaign funds to pay off a mistress)
On top of the crimes listed by other people, Trump has been accused of undervaluing his assets when it came to applying for insurance (insurance fraud) and overvaluing his assets when applying for loans (another form of fraud).
Theft.
He (allegedly) stole pancakes.
(He also is accused of having a bad memory, but I don’t think that’s a crime.)
But as I understood, Trump paid Cohen with his own money, and Cohen then paid assorted recipients. Edwards used money raised for his campaign to pay his baby mama. A misuse of funds as much as a campaign expense violation, about the same as if he put the campaign money into his own bank account or his friend’s.
The other allegation is that he blocked the funds for Ukraine although the Pentagon and Congress specifically said the money needed to get sent. He only sent the money when Congress raised a bigger stink about it. At the time of the phone call, when asking for a “favor” (with or without quotes) he was withholding money the country desperately needed and gave various incorrect reasons. (He said the European allies hadn’t sent anything - Germany alone sent almost as much as the USA; he also said because corruption was an issue, but the various agencies reported things were much cleaner at that point) Again, possibly not an explicit violation of law, but if congress chooses to define withholding money from an ally to benefit Russia as a misdemeanour of presidential behaviour, they can.
My wife and I (both lawyers) have discussed this no little amount recently, and share the OP’s frustration. I;m surprised that somewhere in the Congressional statements and news coverage they don’t say, This could be a violation of XX U.S.C. sec. YYY…
I read yesterday’s coverage in the Sunday paper, and got some mixed info. One commentator quoted the Federalist papers, and said the power to impeach did not have to be for a specific violation of the law, but could be done for POLITICAL purposes (purportedly capitalized in the original.) Another article generally suggested a possible violation of an unspecified aspect of campaign (possibly financing) law. I suspect such law is labyrinthine, and I am just about the opposite of an expert in that area.
It does impress me as curious that it is so difficult to identify what specific crimes might have been committed. As a lawyer, that is a pretty basic inquiry. One is regularly confronted with activity that is scummy and reprehensible - but is it illegal?
Ah, but you see: the penalty from impeachment is limited to removal, and optionally, disqualification from office. So it is being viewed more like the criteria for firing an employee for cause – not necessarily having to satisfy the requirements under Criminal Law for prosecution and conviction of a felony, but the judgers determine that you have proven yourself unsuited to continue in that position.
However, it is right that in US history it has NOT been used as the go-to tool whenever someone is merely scummy and reprehensible. The Johnson impeachment created a precedent that it was not to be used to bring in through the back door the notion of the President needing the “confidence” of Congress. The Bill Clinton impeachment, meanwhile, wound up in acquittal and eventually in having Gingrich himself fall, because it was seen as just an attempt to punish Bill Clinton for being Bill Clinton, and demoralize the Democrat voters, rather than about justice for anything that truly created damage to the Republic and could not wait until after he was out of office. Which is a serious concern that current impeachment-skeptics have had about going after Trump: is this really something that demands he be removed NOW or are we just wanting official proclamation that “he should never have been there”?
That a large part of the public feels that impeachment should be a goal in and of itself whether or not you can hang it on him, is turning impeachment into merely a glorified motion of censure, that eventually nobody fears.
It’s also unnecessary - impeachment is for whatever Congress wants it to be, even though it’s intended to safeguard the nation against an officeholder whose removal cannot wait for the next election to prevent further damage to the nation. It does help Congress’ position *politically *if there’s a conviction or at least charges, letting them portray it as simply taking out the trash, of course, despite there being no connection with the legal system. However, the DOJ policy (not law) against charging a sitting President takes away that option, forcing the statecraft function to stand on its own.
Anyway: How difficult is it for you to identify obstruction of justice in the Mueller report, though?
If it is true that he offered pardons to Government employees who may break laws in order to speed the construction of the border wall, that’s a textbook violation of 18 USC 201.
Is openly advocating civil war specifically covered?
Referring to “Second Amendment people” or something else? That was during the campaign; hard to associate it with impeachment.
No, this was done by Trump this weekend.