Failure to pay debts isn’t a crime. It’s a civil matter, so not subject to pardon.
Fraud is a crime, and some of those debts may be for money fraudulently obtained.
He implied that he might fire Dr. Fauci after the election- I’m not sure if there was an implication regarding who won. I guess Trump couldn’t outright fire him, but put a target on him somehow.
Personally I have my doubts. Trump doesn’t have a realistic assessment of his situation. He undoubtedly thinks that as a very stable genius, he will be able to outmaneuver all of the legal problems he faces. He’ll just make some deals with his legendary skills at that. And nobody will bring charges against him because the people love him and there would be a public uprising. Worst case scenario? He will just draw thinks out until he gets re-elected President in 2024.
If that happens I would hope that Biden would go on television and tell Dr. Fauci that he will have his job back come January 20 so, in the meantime, enjoy the holidays and a little vacation time.
Well…in the US they have found a way around this.
A court says you have to pay your debts. You don’t pay your debts (for whatever reason) and now you are in violation of a court order. Off to jail you go.
So, if Trump has had judgments against him but not paid…
FWIW (truncated title should read: “Mary Trump says her uncle, President Trump, will spend the transition period ‘breaking stuff’ with ‘vengeance’”):
So you don’t think Governors Blagojevich and Ryan should have been charged with corruption offences and gone to jail?
Fully agree that it would be a bad thing if it became routine to charge defeated leaders, but it’s equally bad if defeated leaders are immune from prosecution. That undercuts the rule of law and returns to the divine right of kings.
Same test should apply to defeated leaders as anyone else: are there reasonable and probable grounds to believe the person has committed an offence? If so, the criminal process should apply.
Would want additional procedural protections, like special counsel, to immunise from political interference, but there has to be a way to charge a defeated politician with a crime, if the normal test for charges is met.
I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if, sometime before Inauguration Day, after it’s clear that all of the challenges have been exhausted, if he commits suicide. I don’t want it to happen, but I wouldn’t be surprised.
As for pardons, I can see him issuing four categories of pardons: First, to himself, for everything he may or may not have done before the signing date. Second, the same thing, for his immediate family members (though this one, I’m not completely certain about). Third, for anyone who directly pays him a sufficiently-large amount of money, which payments he won’t even attempt to hide (it’s just smart to take payments for pardons, of course). Fourth, what one might call “spite pardons”, just to get “liberals” angry at him: People who have committed particularly heinous crimes, with slam-dunk evidence against them, and no redeeming qualities.
I don’t know enough about Blago and Ryan’s cases to argue that point and I’m not inclined to study up on them just so I can make this argument.
If you can get clear and convincing evidence for corruption, sure. But it needs to be clear and convincing and I don’t think they’ll get it.
Trump, pre-presidency, was the mobbed-up owner of a barely legitimate business. Prosecutors have been gunning for him for years and they’ve managed to roll up his cronies, but not him.
It would be fairly easy to get him for straight-up corruption, but those aren’t the kind of crimes he commits. I’m going to repeat what I said earlier, he’s not so much a corrupt politician as he is a con man. “No quid pro quo” should be Trump’s motto. Once he gets his quid, you aren’t getting your quo. And that makes it hard to make a legal case against a corrupt transaction. Because there is no transaction. Quid pro quo is the legal standard for corruption, but DJT don’t pay his debts. Trump doesn’t have the “honor among thieves” required for corruption.
I think the “normal test for charges” is the problem.
Look at the whole Don J Trump Tower Russian email thing. Obviously egregiously wrong but once you delve into the legal weeds, what crime exactly could you charge and what precedents would you use back up the charging decision? It’s easy to back up the charging decision on a straight-up corruption case, you just need to find a couple of similar cases that were charged and prosecuted the same way. But finding a legal charge inside of and justifying a charging decision against some of this Trump fuckery seems line it would be difficult. There is no “normal” test, there is no “normal” - which is kind of my point.
Now, one caveat
If Trump goes so completely and totally batshit in the next two months that it can’t be ignored, the past 4 years of Republican fuckery and gaslighting could be completely exposed. If they have to article 25 him because he fires Barr, installs Guiliani as acting AG and tries to arrest Biden or Obama, he’ll completely lose even that very thin veneer of legitimacy that the office of the POTUS has sprayed on him and then he’s fair game for all.
I’m seem to be the only one that feels Trump will keep doubling down rather than coming around to marginally accept that his is a lost cause. Maybe I’m just giddy, but I’m standing by my prediction.
I think Trump is way to narcissistic for a thought like that to even cross his mind. He likely doesn’t personally feel any sort of shame or dishonor from having lost. In his own mind he probably believes he did win fair and square and that the election actually was stolen from him. He just wants to figure out a way to keep his gravy train going while getting back at those he feels betrayed him.
Just look at the Mueller Report. He proved elements of crimes that were committed. Things that if you or I did would have us in front of a judge without question. Mueller did not indict because, he felt, you cannot indict a sitting president.
There is MORE than enough there to get anyone in court and then let the court figure it out.
Some things trump may be guilty of:
From: A rap sheet for a former president
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Obstruction of Justice: In at least four of those instances, Mueller laid out evidence sufficient to prove each element of the offense
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Bribery: When Trump threatened to withhold military aid from Ukraine in 2019, he was arguably doing just that.
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Conspiracy to defraud the United States: If members of the Trump administration sabotaged the U.S. Postal Service to influence the outcome of the 2020 election, this charge could be considered for anyone who conspired to achieve the illegal objective, even those who took no personal action.
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Campaign finance violations: The government stated that Cohen “acted in coordination with and at the direction of Individual-1” — identified as someone who ran “an ultimately successful campaign for President of the United States.” It appears that the Justice Department has already reached the conclusion that there is sufficient evidence to charge Trump.
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Pre-presidency crimes: While those proceedings are civil in nature, they may further illuminate any criminal conduct in the business practices of Trump and the Trump Organization.
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Hatch Act violations: When Trump schedules campaign events at the White House, as he has recently, he is commanding federal employees to violate the Hatch Act by setting up the room, admitting the guests or otherwise performing tasks to support the event. When the president spoke from the White House at the Republican National Convention and recognized uniformed Border Patrol agents who were in attendance, he arguably was soliciting or conspiring with them to violate the Hatch Act.
That’s just what we know now.
I’m not real good at the nested cut on paste, but here are my responses.
Obstruction of Justice I agree, Trump obstructed justice like no one ever has before. But it’s the “like no one ever has before” that’s the problem. Has anyone else ever been charging with threatening and intimidating witnesses publicly via Twitter? Is there a precedent for that charge? His lawyers will claim if you do it publicly for the world to see, it’s not intimidation.
Bribery There’s a whole universe of activities that are illegal for an ordinary citizen but legal when you are President. I’m not aware of any other case where the POTUS tried to withhold foreign aid in exchange for investigating an American citizen. Again, no precedent. Plus a whole fuck ton of other issues. Ukraine got the aid yet never investigated. Is an investigation a thing of value? Any precedent? Are they going to call Zelensky as a witness? How would that work? Did the impeachment trial attach jeopardy?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not minimizing these crimes, I’m just making the point that their…uniqueness might be an issue in prosecution.
Conspiracy to defraud the United States if they can prove conspiracy, that’s where they might be able to get him, I believe I mentioned that somewhere. But that would take a lengthy investigation, that’s not a charge that would come down on 1/20/2021 . And he’s been involved in plenty of criminal conspiracies before and he’s really good at manufacturing plausible deniability.
Campaign finance violations I think he has an escape hatch in the Cohen thing, and it’s one that he uses all the time. He never really paid Cohen back. Cohen clarified this in his book, he mortgaged his house, the repayment was supposed to be added stealthily to his Christmas bonus, and Trump stiffed him. Normal, Cohen would’ve folded but this was big money for him and he mortgaged his house behind his wife’s back, so he had to push Trump.
That’s when Trump paid him back by giving him that contract for legal services. But what Cohen revealed in the book was that he was expected to perform said legal services for that money. So, in actuality, Trump never paid off Stormy. Cohen did. Conspiracy maybe again, and I’m sure there’s a ton of fraud in the current election. Maybe a future conspiracy charge, but I don’t think they’ll have the goods by 01/20/21.
pre-presidency crimes I think he will face a huge onslaught of civil actions or even criminal charges against the Trump Organization. I’m not sure they find anything they can criminally prosecute him for personally, though. Prosecutors have been gunning for him for years. Maybe he’ll have a harder time dodging charges like he used to now that his public profile is so high, but again…this isn’t haul him away on Inauguration Day stuff.
Hatch Act The Hatch Act doesn’t apply to him ( or Pence ). The violations were egregious and they could easily charge everyone else in the administration. But the penalties are usually financial ( when Kathlyn Sebilus violated it by seemingly encouraging her audience to re-elect Obama during a speech, she was required to repay the government for her entire cost of attending the event where she made the slip.), censure, and at most, a recommendation that the person be fired.
Rather than go into every detail I think the important takeaway is Robert Mueller, in his report, showed that they had sufficient evidence to meet the criteria for a crime having been committed that would be sufficient to bring a criminal case. Mueller did not think the president could be indicted but said he compiled the evidence so, if someone wanted to, they could use it after he stopped being president.
Tl;Dr: If it was you or me having done those things we would absolutely be charged with felonies and go to court for it.
I do not see why the president should be special in this regard. Hell, I don’t think being president should protect him but certainly once he is not president anymore he gets to stand before a judge like any other citizen accused of a crime.
Also, Hatch Act violations can carry a three year prison sentence. I am not sure why the President is immune (if he is).
Seriously? I can’t imagine him turning on himself. He’ll turn on other people. I just hope he doesn’t do too much damage.
Crosspost but I think I should put this here too:
It’s been ages since my Psych-101 class (read: I know nothing) but IIRC if a narcissist has their mental façade of their all consuming greatness torn down such that they really have to face their true self then they don’t cope well at all (think Dorian Gray and his painting).
Until such a time he will never turn on himself. He can’t. He loves himself too much. Chances are it will never happen. He has comprehensively convinced himself of his awesomeness. He is incapable of thinking otherwise. It’s everyone else who is wrong.
Four years of loyal ask-no-questions service to Trump won’t get you a pardon.
But a thousand dollar donation to the Trump Presidential Library fund will.
I absolutely cannot see him offing himself. Too much ego for that. And I’m kind of hoping he doesn’t make a concession speech. Concessions are supposed to be graceful, best wishes to the winner, etc. and such a speech is not possible for Trump. He would whine, badmouth Biden, accuse him of stealing the election, etc. and I would rather not see that.
He also will not go to Russia. He will slink off to Mar-A-Lago and spend the rest of his life fighting extradition to NY.
I’ve speculated multiple times that Trump would do a rabbit. But I’ve realized that this is not something that the US intelligence community will allow to happen. While he is the president until 20/01/2021, he is not the monarch. The intelligence community will consider him a threat to national security if he attempts to flee the US. Additionally, since the president always travels with the nuclear code suitcase, he would have to have the cooperation of defense and national security to leave the country between now and the end of his term. I very much doubt he will be permitted out of their sight, let alone out of the country.