What would we do if we discovered a duly sworn president had cheated on the election?

Politics & Elections
1

I want to make it clear that I am not accusing Donald Trump of anything. I think that the electorate may have been manipulated, especially by Comey and his timing of releasing investigative details, and Russians may have attempted to do things, but I don’t really think a few Russians on social media really changed that much, and anyway, I’m not sure what they did was illegal, no matter what one might think of it morally.

I want to know what would be done if a sitting president were discovered to have done some large scale, unquestionably illegal activity: outright bought votes, orchestrated voter fraud, hacked machines, or something like that.

There are laws that allow presidents to put off prosecution for crimes committed while not in office, until after they have served their term, and I hope that some emergency session of the Supreme Court would find that this did not apply to acts that got the president into office in the first place.

That still leaves the question of how to replace him (or her). The vice president might not be party to the fraud, but would also not have been legally elected. Would the VP still be able to take office? Would this be up to the Supreme Court? Would the Supreme Court be able to say that since the Electoral College actually elected the VP, and the VP wasn’t guilty of anything, after any impeachment, resignation, or whatever of the president, the VP could take the office?

Suppose the VP was, in fact guilty as well? Would we just go down the chain of appointments, or would they be tainted? Is there any provision for a special election of a new president? if so, would we start out with a whole new line-up of candidates, or just elect from the previous ones (which pretty much is a lock for the other major party candidate, unless there happened to be some kind of viable independent).

Who would serve while the special election was taking place? Is there any provision for appointing an interim president?

It’s times like this I miss my father. He always knew anything like this off the top of his head. He had a Ph.D in Poli Sci.

2

How are the voters for the electoral college handled in the constitution and other pertinent federal statutes? They are the ones that voted for the president, not the populace. States typically abide by the popular vote in the state but is it mandatory?

3

If the President rigged the election, that would be a strong case for impeachment. Whether th VP would also be impeached (very likely elevating the Speaker of the House to the presidency) is a matter that Congress would have to debate and decide whether the VP would also have to go.

But I don’t think there is any scenario where the Supreme Court would have a substantive decision making role in such a controversy. This is clearly a matter where Congress gets to decide through the process of impeachment how to react; the courts are not given the power to overturn Federal elections.

4

Rigging an election would be near impossible. It’s a pipe dream at would require compromising the voting machines in several states. There was a recount in Wisconsin. Trump picked up more votes.

But let’s stick with the Russians for a moment as the Russians gave Bill Clinton $500,000.00 for a speech. This is 5 times higher than the amount the Russians spent on facebook adds. Iran gave several million to Hillary. The quid pro quo is much higher here. Just imagine if there was an investigation that went after all connected to Hillary Clinton’s campaign. What would be found?

The Muller investigation that has found zero evidence of collusion. It’s time to wrap it up.

5

Which Mueller investigation is that? Because the one that’s in the news is the one that’s aware of Junior’s tweet where he confesses to colluding with the Russians. Not that it’s really difficult to “investigate” a public communication broadcast to everyone on the planet who has an Internet connection.

As for the difficulty of rigging an election, it’s your word vs. Trump’s. He says that not only is it possible, but that it was actually done, to a far greater degree than would have been needed to give him victory unearned.

6

It would be up to congress to impeach him. It would be up to the people to put people in congress who could.

There is no legal recourse for declaring the electoral college vote invalid. Once it’s done, it’s done. If the EC somehow caught wind of fraud before their vote, perhaps they could do something about it, but that could set off chaos.

I think the closest we’ve ever come to a breakdown in the presidential elections process might have been in 1876.

7

Projection and overuse of the IBM “always cast doubt” playbook. The Muller investigation has not released, made any public comments nor have had a credible leak, for what evidence they may have on collusion. And Mullers investigation is not limited to “collusion.” One could also argue that “traitor” could be a more accurate term.

Furthermore, if the Muller organization finds evidence of other serious illegalities (not something as mundane as lying about at BJ or lying about an affair) such as that the Trump organization has illegally laundered hundreds of millions if not billions of Russian money, then Trump should be successfully impeached.

8

The Mueller investigation is about the broad issue of Russian interference in the US election system. Trump could be the most anti-Russian non-colluder in the entire history of collusion and the investigation would still have a purpose.

But, as noted, the investigation hasn’t released it’s findings yet. We don’t know if there was collusion or not or whether he has found any involving Trump.

9

The OP is confusing. Your title talks about “a duly sworn president”, which seems to imply that this proof positive comes out sometime after the president takes office in January. Much of the rest of your post sounds like you’re imagining a scenario where the candidate cheats in November, and it is discovered and proven prior to his taking office in January. Which is it?

10

What’s our normal protocol for treason? 100x that.

11

Perhaps you missed the first sentence of the OP.

If someone mentions “fraud” and you leap into a defense of Trump, you are solely responsible for connecting your party to a crime.

12

Guilty conscience? *

No one said anything about this being about Trump. In fact, the OP specific stated that it was not a reference to any current PotUS or investigation. That your brain automatically jumped to the need to defend PotUS is very telling.

*I can never remember whether it’s conscience or conscious in this type of situation.

13

I thought I was pretty clear that this comes out after the president is sworn in, thereby making it possible for him to invoke the “Can’t prosecute me until my term is over.”

I hope there is some way around that.

14

There is: impeachment. Once impeached by the House and convicted and removed from office by the Senate, the now-former President can be indicted through the normal criminal process.

15

Not until after the midterm elections. Don’t want to give Trumpists an excuse for the drubbing they are going to take.

16

For the record, previous to the establishment of the secret ballot, an average of 2% of the vote was purchased so, in a sense, nearly all of the Presidents elected through history cheated the election.

17

Wow, jump right into whataboutsim?

Yes, he did, in fact that was his normal fee for speaking overseas.

GWB has :"Bush has given at least 200 paid speeches and probably many more, typically pocketing $100,000 to $175,000 per appearance. The part-time work, which rarely requires more than an hour on stage, has earned him tens of millions of dollars."
https://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/on-talk-circuit-george-bush-makes-millions-but-few-waves-118697
Sarah Palin has earned tens of million, as have many others.

And the funds went to a Non-profit org that Hillary chairs. Not her. It’s been totally debunked.

18

Listening to the media again?

You might want to take note that Democrats must defend Senate seats in states Trump won by large margins. North Dakota ( she’s likely out ) West Virginia, and Indiana.

Furthermore, look for Rick Scott to unseat Bill Nelson in Florida.

I believe the Republicans will be picking up seats in the Senate, which gives Trump a lot of control to further his vision for the nation, allowing him to nominate another super court justice for example if the opportunity presents itself.

The House is harder to predict, however, the Republicans hold a 43 seat majority. And do not discount many Democrats crossing the line if it means infrastructure spending, which is badly needed in some Democratic strongholds.

But if that’s not enough, Democrats for whatever reason are lazy voters on midterms. It has been my observation they often need a rock star on the ticket, and help from the entertainment business, which in a political sense has been badly compromised by the “ me too “ movement.

This so called blue wave might be a mere puddle splash at best.

19

Palin is an idiot. No issues there, however you might want to read below on the Clinton Foundation. The conflict of interest and the quid pro quo is at epic levels. Its rotten, and I guarantee you if the FBI had a Muller like investigation focused on the Clinton Foundation…watch out.
http://hangthebankers.com/clinton-corruption-10-facts-clinton-foundation/

20

Ah…the last several investigations into the Clintons resulted in no criminal charges and in fact the Clinton Foundation has been highly rated in its inspections but the next investigation is the one that’s going to reveal all the secret corruption. Got it.

Tell you what - I’ll read your link on the Clintons if you read any or all of the following ones on the connections between Trump and Russia:

Timeline - the Moscow Project

Everything We Know About Russia and President Trump

The Giant Timeline of Everything Russia, Trump and the investigations

I’ll also point out that the investigation you want to “wrap up” has thus far resulted in 23 indictments (20 people, 3 businesses) on over 100 charges, with five guilty pleas. Paul Manafort in particular is looking at a very long list of serious charges, and has had his bail revoked for witness tampering. And that’s not counting the separate Michael Cohen investigation.

So let’s review the respective evidence, considering the actual amount of factual basis for each claim, and see where the FBI ought to be focusing its efforts.

Back on topic: there really is no mechanism to address the OP’s situation. If the tampering was done by someone other than the President himself, with sufficient remove that it could not be shown with any confidence that the President had been complicit, I’d be surprised if even impeachment would be a workable option. The US electoral system is woefully vulnerable at all levels to all sorts of problems that ain’t gonna be fixed by voter ID.