The Briefing Room
General Category => Politics/Government => Topic started by: mystery-ak on June 04, 2018, 01:04:39 pm
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Trump: 'I have the absolute right to pardon myself'
Kevin Breuninger | @KevinWilliamB
Published 23 Mins Ago Updated 4 Mins Ago
President Donald Trump said Monday morning that he has "the absolute right" to pardon himself — but added that he has "done nothing wrong."
Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
As has been stated by numerous legal scholars, I have the absolute right to PARDON myself, but why would I do that when I have done nothing wrong? In the meantime, the never ending Witch Hunt, led by 13 very Angry and Conflicted Democrats (& others) continues into the mid-terms!
7:35 AM - Jun 4, 2018
more
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/04/trump-i-have-the-absolute-right-to-pardon-myself.html (https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/04/trump-i-have-the-absolute-right-to-pardon-myself.html)
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Hmmm...
I guess Obama had the same right...as well as the next Dim POTUS... :shrug:
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Hmmm...
I guess Obama had the same right...as well as the next Dim POTUS... :shrug:
It would be interesting to see how it played out before the SCOTUS. Almost guaranteed to end up there.
But in pardoning himself he would be admitting guilt.
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It would be interesting to see how it played out before the SCOTUS. Almost guaranteed to end up there.
But in pardoning himself he would be admitting guilt.
Not necessarily, since a person could always be convicted for something they didn’t do. It does mean he couldn’t plead the 5th on any questions about the matter afterwards, but could still be found guilty in any potential perjury from statements.
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Interesting flashback from the Bill Clinton era.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/1998/12/can_president_clinton_pardon_himself.html (http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/1998/12/can_president_clinton_pardon_himself.html)
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:facepalm:
Then why have any laws or restrictions against the President whatsoever?
I'm regretting my vote again. I want to like this guy too.
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Another interesting flashback. From the Justice Department to Richard Nixon, 1974, letting him know he can't pardon himself.
https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/olc/opinions/1974/08/31/op-olc-supp-v001-p0370_0.pdf (https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/olc/opinions/1974/08/31/op-olc-supp-v001-p0370_0.pdf)
Long document but here is a snip:
....1. Pursuant to Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution, the “Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment,†is vested in the President. This raises the question whether the President can pardon himself. Under the fundamental rule that no one may be a judge in his own case, it would seem that the question should be answered in the negative.
2. The necessity doctrine would not appear applicable here. That doctrine deals with the situation in which the sole or all judges or officials who have jurisdiction to decide a case are disqualified because they belong to a class of persons who have some interest in the outcome of the litigation, thus depriving the citizen of a forum to have his case decided. In that situation the disqualification rule is frequently relaxed to avoid a denial of justice. Evans v. Gore, 253 U.S. 245, 247– 48 (1920);** Tumey v. Ohio, 273 U.S. 510, 522 (1927). It is, however, extremely questionable whether that doctrine is pertinent where the deciding official himself would be directly and exclusively affected by his official act. See Tumey, 273 U.S. at 523.......
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Then why have any laws or restrictions against the President whatsoever?
The pardon could not prevent Congress from impeaching and removing him for the action, it just means he couldn’t be criminally prosecuted afterwards. You can believe, however, that action would lead to a case before SCOTUS.
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Truth is, the "I can pardon myself" argument is something of a tempest in a teapot. The people who dislike Trump are hyping it as "yet another example" of how horrible he is. The reality is that it is being argued primarily as part of a legal argument as to why he doesn't have to respond to a subpoena from Mueller. And on that, I agree -- I don't think he has to appear, nor should he.
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The pardon could not prevent Congress from impeaching and removing him for the action, it just means he couldn’t be criminally prosecuted afterwards. You can believe, however, that action would lead to a case before SCOTUS.
Haha bullshit. Let him try that shit.
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Truth is, the "I can pardon myself" argument is something of a tempest in a teapot. The people who dislike Trump are hyping it as "yet another example" of how horrible he is. The reality is that it is being argued primarily as part of a legal argument as to why he doesn't have to respond to a subpoena from Mueller. And on that, I agree -- I don't think he has to appear, nor should he.
:shrug:
We'll see. It will come down to whether Congress is willing to impeach the guy. I didn't vote for a dictator, sorry.
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:shrug:
We'll see. It will come down to whether Congress is willing to impeach the guy. I didn't vote for a dictator, sorry.
The Constitution gives the President the power to pardon anyone accused or convicted of a federal
crime. It only places one restriction on the pardon power and that is impeachment. He can not
pardon himself out of being impreached. So yes he can pardon himself if is wants to.
How many divisions does the Supreme Court command?
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:shrug:
We'll see. It will come down to whether Congress is willing to impeach the guy. I didn't vote for a dictator, sorry.
Honestly, what has he done that is dictatorial? I don't get it. He's never claimed that Congress doesn't have the power to impeach and remove him from office.
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Honestly, what has he done that is dictatorial? I don't get it. He's never claimed that Congress doesn't have the power to impeach and remove him from office.
If he's pardoning himself then he's a dictator, period.
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If he's pardoning himself then he's a dictator, period.
@Weird Tolkienish Figure
No a dictator would just change the law so whatever he wanted to do wasn't a crime.
A dictator wouldn't need a pardon.
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How many divisions does the Supreme Court command?
Trump's military commanders swear to the Constitution, not to Trump.
The country is in a state of economic prosperity... so why is Trump threatening constitutional crisis like this?
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:shrug:
We'll see. It will come down to whether Congress is willing to impeach the guy. I didn't vote for a dictator, sorry.
@Weird Tolkienish Figure
Impeach for what?
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@Weird Tolkienish Figure
No a dictator would just change the law so whatever he wanted to do wasn't a crime.
A dictator wouldn't need a pardon.
I strongly disagree.
A President who can pardon himself is unconstrained by any laws.
But it doesn't matter what I think does it? Nor does it matter what you think. What matters is what the USSC will say (I suspect they will agree with me).
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@Weird Tolkienish Figure
Impeach for what?
Well what is he pardoning himself for?
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Trump's military commanders swear to the Constitution, not to Trump.
The country is in a state of economic prosperity... so why is Trump threatening constitutional crisis like this?
@Weird Tolkienish Figure
Perhaps because they have prep-printed up articles of impeachment and are just searching around for anything to charge him with.
Seems to me the people creating a constitutional crisis are the ones trying to subvert a duly elected President.
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Well what is he pardoning himself for?
As far as I've heard he's committed no high crime or misdemeanor.
So its anyones guess.
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I strongly disagree.
A President who can pardon himself is unconstrained by any laws.
But it doesn't matter what I think does it? Nor does it matter what you think. What matters is what the USSC will say (I suspect they will agree with me).
The USSC has no say in the matter. Read the Constitution. The President right to pardon is unconstrained except for impeachment. The USSC does not rule the county.
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@Weird Tolkienish Figure
No a dictator would just change the law so whatever he wanted to do wasn't a crime.
A dictator wouldn't need a pardon.
Why change the law when with the stroke of a pen, you can make yourself immune from it? A pardon is easier than changing the law. He can write a document in a minute or less and sign it in front of a couple of witnesses and bam, done.
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The USSC has no say in the matter.
:silly:
You may believe that, but in reality they do. I understand Marbury vs. Madison and all that, but the reality is that for 200 years the USSC has been the prime interpreter of the USSC and you can expect Congress to go with their recommendation.
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Why change the law when with the stroke of a pen, you can make yourself immune from it? A pardon is easier than changing the law. He can write a document in a minute or less and sign it in front of a couple of witnesses and bam, done.
Its a silly argument. By definition a dictator is the law. If you're above the law then you don't need a pardon.
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Um, no. Impeachment and Removal are final.
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If he's pardoning himself then he's a dictator, period.
I find it fascinating that the people who would have gone batshit crazy in outrage if Obama had done that - are now jumping through twisted hoops of logic to justify Trump doing it.
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I find it fascinating that the people who would have gone batshit crazy in outrage if Obama had done that - are now jumping through twisted hoops of logic to justify Trump doing it.
@INVAR
Really, you know of someone here who actually defended Obama? Or are you just making stuff up again?
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@INVAR
Really, you know of someone here who actually defended Obama? Or are you just making stuff up again?
You have a deliberate and willfully moronic inability to read and comprehend.
Re-read what I wrote, and maybe ask someone else what it means if you think I said anyone here defended Obama, instead of twisting what I wrote to create a shitstorm.
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I find it fascinating that the people who would have gone batshit crazy in outrage if Obama had done that - are now jumping through twisted hoops of logic to justify Trump doing it.
Yup.
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If he's pardoning himself then he's a dictator, period.
I don't get this. He can be removed by Congress via impeachment and conviction at any time, regardless of whether he pardons himself for an underlying crime. And if he can be removed by Congress...how is he a dictator?
The argument he is making is a technical legal argument, being made for a very technical legal purpose. It's being blown out of proportion by people who want to be able to scream "See! I told you so!"
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@INVAR
Really, you know of someone here who actually defended Obama? Or are you just making stuff up again?
@INVAR @driftdiver
For me it's like waking up in a never ending twilight zone episode where words mean nothing and the devil has the best words. And you say to yourself...these people made sense to me 2 years ago.
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@INVAR @driftdiver
It's like waking up in a never ending twilight zone episode where words mean nothing and the devil has the best words. And you say to yourself...these people made sense to me 2 years ago.
@Once-Ler @INVAR
You don't like Trump, we get it.
You have zero evidence that he's committed a crime. Yet you've already decided he needs to be impeached.
Yet you lose your mind at the idea he could pardon himself .... for a crime he hasn't committed, that he hasn't been charged with, that there is no evidence of. That even if there was evidence, its not a crime to begin with (obstruction).
You call him a dictator and you are breathless at the thought of removing him from office, you don't even care who replaces him.
You NTs and leftists are the ones guilty of a conspiracy and of illegally trying to remove a duly elected President. Talk about collusion.
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I don't get this. He can be removed by Congress via impeachment and conviction at any time, regardless of whether he pardons himself for an underlying crime. And if he can be removed by Congress...how is he a dictator?
The argument he is making is a technical legal argument, being made for a very technical legal purpose. It's being blown out of proportion by people who want to be able to scream "See! I told you so!"
@Maj. Bill Martin
Because impeachment and dictator are the talking points of the day.
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I don't get this. He can be removed by Congress via impeachment and conviction at any time, regardless of whether he pardons himself for an underlying crime. And if he can be removed by Congress...how is he a dictator?
The argument he is making is a technical legal argument, being made for a very technical legal purpose. It's being blown out of proportion by people who want to be able to scream "See! I told you so!"
Maybe I am misconstruing your argument? Is your argument that if Trump pardons himself, he should be impeached then?
Would you be ok if Obama pardoned himself? or said this?
I would suspect no, but Trumpists have been managing all sorts of contortions of truth lately.
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Maybe I am misconstruing your argument? Is your argument that if Trump pardons himself, he should be impeached then?
Would you be ok if Obama pardoned himself? or said this?
I would suspect no, but Trumpists have been managing all sorts of contortions of truth lately.
@Weird Tolkienish Figure
yet again with the insults.
Nobody has said he SHOULD pardon himself. They've simply said he COULD.
Kinda silly to fight about this since he hasn't even been charged with a crime yet, despite all those people trying to frame him
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@Weird Tolkienish Figure
yet again with the insults.
:shrug:
Where's the insult?
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:shrug:
Where's the insult?
@Weird Tolkienish Figure
"Trumpists "
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@Weird Tolkienish Figure
"Trumpists "
How is that an insult? It was not intended as an insult.
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@Once-Ler @INVAR
You don't like Trump, we get it.
You have zero evidence that he's committed a crime. Yet you've already decided he needs to be impeached.
Yet you lose your mind at the idea he could pardon himself .... for a crime he hasn't committed, that he hasn't been charged with, that there is no evidence of. That even if there was evidence, its not a crime to begin with (obstruction).
You call him a dictator and you are breathless at the thought of removing him from office, you don't even care who replaces him.
You NTs and leftists are the ones guilty of a conspiracy and of illegally trying to remove a duly elected President. Talk about collusion.
@driftdiver
You see right through me except a few points. I have never called Trump a dictator. I have called him a clown and inept. His followers wish for a dictator, but Trump is a very weak and vain man, and I would welcome President Pence as Trump's replacement.
I'm just a guy with a family. I have not conspired with leftists to stop Trump unless you count the fact that I voted GOP for 30 years except 2016. It was because I believed President Trump is a horrible person and the GOP has abandoned all of it's principles in accepting him as the President. I think less of him today.
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How is that an insult? It was not intended as an insult.
@Weird Tolkienish Figure
Sure it is. Its intended to demean anyone who voted for Trump. Lump everyone into the same box for whatever the talking point of the day is.
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@Weird Tolkienish Figure
yet again with the insults.
Nobody has said he SHOULD pardon himself. They've simply said he COULD.
Kinda silly to fight about this since he hasn't even been charged with a crime yet, despite all those people trying to frame him
Actually, you don't need to be specifically charged with a crime to be pardoned. There are many cases like this. One example was Ford's pardoning of Nixon for crimes he never actually was charged with.
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@Weird Tolkienish Figure
Sure it is. Its intended to demean anyone who voted for Trump. Lump everyone into the same box for whatever the talking point of the day is.
:rolling:
No, it's not. But thanks for being a mind-reader.
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@Once-Ler @INVAR
You don't like Trump, we get it.
You have zero evidence that he's committed a crime. Yet you've already decided he needs to be impeached.
Why do you continue to create a bunch of bullshit out of thin air and ascribe it to those who do not genuflect your prince as you so desperately want us to do?
Where have I said ANYWHERE on this board or elsewhere that I think Trump committed a crime and needs to be impeached???
I simply commented on the fascinating observation that had Obama said what Trump tweeted today, you and the whole host of us would be outraged and pointing out the dangerous mindset of a man who saw himself as above the law and could simply act as a monarch, but because it's Trump - you justify and make excuses for why doing such a thing would be a-okay, legal and good.
Yet you lose your mind at the idea he could pardon himself .... for a crime he hasn't committed, that he hasn't been charged with, that there is no evidence of. That even if there was evidence, its not a crime to begin with (obstruction).
Have you people never heard of the concept of avoiding the appearance of evil? Especially in a Witch-hunt atmosphere?
You would have lost your freaking mind had Obama suggested a similar course of action, for things he and his mob of sycophants would insist was not criminal or unethical. But because it's Trump - "It's okay when WE DO IT!"
You call him a dictator and you are breathless at the thought of removing him from office, you don't even care who replaces him.
Provide the quote and link where I said such a thing, or do you consider yourself clairvoyant and can read deep thoughts and motives from those of us who post here on this board?
You NTs and leftists are the ones guilty of a conspiracy and of illegally trying to remove a duly elected President. Talk about collusion.
Oh, we're GUILTY are we? Guilty of conspiracy and illegal efforts to remove a duly elected president? Simply because you decree it so? No need for a trial? No need for evidence beyond what you accuse? Just a summary execution for treason from you Trump fascists?
Yes, I truly see little difference between you and the morons who still pine for Obama.
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@Weird Tolkienish Figure
"Trumpists "
And yet four posts above this, you accuse those who are merely discussing a topic as colluding with leftists to illegally remove a sitting president. That's a bit more than silly name calling.
Physician heal thyself.
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And yet four posts above this, you accuse those who are merely discussing a topic as colluding with leftists to illegally remove a sitting president. That's a bit more than silly name calling.
Physician heal thyself.
@AbaraXas
Yet that is exactly what is happening. Both the NT and the Leftists are clamoring for impeachment. yet there hasn't even been a crime identified yet. Same talking points at the same time, hmmmm
So if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck.....
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Actually, you don't need to be specifically charged with a crime to be pardoned. There are many cases like this. One example was Ford's pardoning of Nixon for crimes he never actually was charged with.
@AbaraXas
And yet you folks are all up in arms
its curious but not accidental
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What leader would float the idea of pardoning himself, besides an aspiring dictator? Do we really need a daily reminder of this guy's mental state? **nononono*
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@AbaraXas
And yet you folks are all up in arms
its curious but not accidental
No one is up in arms, we are discussing a topic.
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:facepalm:
I'm regretting my vote again. I want to like this guy too.
I feel the same way. Every few weeks, Trump says something over-the-top stupid. His citation of the lawyers who say he can pardon himself is ASININE. He needs to stop listening to idiots.
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@AbaraXas
Yet that is exactly what is happening. Both the NT and the Leftists are clamoring for impeachment. yet there hasn't even been a crime identified yet. Same talking points at the same time, hmmmm
So if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck.....
So in your world, the mere discussion of a topic on a private message board, by people with zero legal or legislative authority over the matter, is the same as collusion with leftists to illegally overthrow a president?
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Maybe I am misconstruing your argument? Is your argument that if Trump pardons himself, he should be impeached then?
No -- absolutely not. The proper remedy for an invalid pardon would simply be voiding the pardon, not impeachment. To me, that would be...silly. You would impeach him for the underlying offense that you think he committed -- not for him pardoning himself for that crime.
My point is that the ultimate limitation on a President's power is the power of Congress to impeach, convict, and remove from office. This argument over whether or not a President has the legal authority to pardon himself has no bearing on that. It's irrelevant to any substantive debate -- it's relevant only to the legal maneuverings with Mueller.
Also, it is important to note that a sitting President likely cannot be indicted anyway -- Mueller himself already has stated that he doesn't have the power to indict Trump. You'd have to remove him from office first via impeachment, then prosecute him. And as I stated above, nothing about the pardon power impacts impeachment.
Would you be ok if Obama pardoned himself? or said this?
Well, what I would upset about if he would have committed a criminal act, not him trying to pardon himself for it. And I wouldn't care what he said about it -- whether or not such a pardon would be effective ultimately would be up to the Supreme Court. Either he has the power, or he doesn't. I personally don't think the Supreme Court would uphold a pardon that was issued by a sitting President, subsequently impeached, that would apply to crimes for which he wasn't even charged until after he was already removed from office. But if it was a valid exercise of Presidential power under the Constitution, then the pardon would be valid. The problem would be poorly-drafted Constitutional provision that should be fixed.
So again...I think this is much ado about nothing. It's just another thing about which some people are going to get their panties in a twist, that ultimately is completely irrelevant.
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No -- absolutely not. The proper remedy for an invalid pardon would simply be voiding the pardon, not impeachment. To me, that would be...silly.
My point is that the ultimate limitation on a President's power is the power of Congress to impeach, convict, and remove from office. This argument over whether or not a President has the legal authority to pardon himself has no bearing on that. It's irrelevant.
Also, it is important to note that a sitting President likely cannot be indicted anyway -- Mueller himself already has stated that he doesn't have the power to indict Trump. You'd have to remove him from office first via impeachment, then prosecute him. And as I stated above, nothing about the pardon power impacts impeachment.
I wouldn't care what he said about it -- whether or not such a pardon would be effective ultimately would be up to the Supreme Court. Either he has the power, or he doesn't. I personally don't think the Supreme Court would uphold a pardon that was issued by a sitting President, subsequently impeached, that would apply to crimes for which he wasn't even charged until after he was already removed from office. But if it was a valid exercise of Presidential power under the Constitution, then the pardon would be valid. The problem would be poorly-drafted Constitutional provision that should be fixed.
So again...I think this is much ado about nothing. It's just another thing about which some people are going to get their panties in a twist, that ultimately is completely irrelevant.
It’s not completely todo about nothing. If a pardon is valid, the pardoned person cannot be prosecuted. Since a pardon can be done prospectively, and since the only punishment flowing from a successful impeachment is removal from office, a hypothetical really evil president could commit heinous criminal acts, pardon himself, and remain scot-free even if he was summarily impeached and removed from office.
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It’s not completely todo about nothing. If a pardon is valid, the pardoned person cannot be prosecuted. Since a pardon can be done prospectively, and since the only punishment flowing from a successful impeachment is removal from office, a hypothetical really evil president could commit heinous criminal acts, pardon himself, and remain scot-free even if he was summarily impeached and removed from office.
Exactly. Since PRECEDENT is now LAW in this country - if an Executive got away with pardoning himself in advance of any articles of impeachment or criminal charges - and the precedent sticks because of sycophants stacked in congress and on the bench - then the fears of such a portent are more than justified.
Had Obama said what Trump tweeted, there would be nearly unanimous outrage and condemnation. But now, because it is Trump - we get to enjoy all the justifications why the appearance of evil does not matter over legalistic minutae - as long as it's Trump making asinine and stupid statements like this.
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So in your world, the mere discussion of a topic on a private message board, by people with zero legal or legislative authority over the matter, is the same as collusion with leftists to illegally overthrow a president?
@AbaraXas
How often does the mere discussion involve accusations of being a dictator?
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It’s not completely todo about nothing. If a pardon is valid, the pardoned person cannot be prosecuted. Since a pardon can be done prospectively, and since the only punishment flowing from a successful impeachment is removal from office, a hypothetical really evil president could commit heinous criminal acts, pardon himself, and remain scot-free even if he was summarily impeached and removed from office.
You just framed a perfect, obviously crushing reductio ad absurdum argument against Trump's claim (not to mention the claims of the idiot lawyers he cited). It's a completely valid argument. The Courts would take about 30 seconds to reach a unanimous decision against Trump.
I have been trying to support our POTUS. But now I am reminded as to why I refused to vote in the 2016 WH election.
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I have been trying to support our POTUS. But now I am reminded as to why I refused to vote in the 2016 WH election.
Yep. And I want to like him, but I'll never support this kind of stuff.
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It’s not completely todo about nothing.
Sure it is. You guys are getting way ahead of yourselves, and confusing what is actually going on.. All he has done here that has you guys in such a tizzy is make a statement about what the law is. That is not the same as if he had actually committed some heinous crime, which would be something worthy of getting upset.
If a pardon is valid, the pardoned person cannot be prosecuted.
If such a pardon is valid, then Trump's statement about him having the power to pardon himself is true. Right? So why would you be pissed at someone for making a true, accurate statement about what the law is? It's just stating a fact.
Since a pardon can be done prospectively, and since the only punishment flowing from a successful impeachment is removal from office, a hypothetical really evil president could commit heinous criminal acts, pardon himself, and remain scot-free even if he was summarily impeached and removed from office.
But again, you're confusing him actually committing a heinous act and pardoning himself, with him saying that he would have the legal right to do that under the Constitution. Those are two different things.
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You just framed a perfect, obviously crushing reductio ad absurdum argument against Trump's claim (not to mention the claims of the idiot lawyers he cited). It's a completely valid argument. The Courts would take about 30 seconds to reach a unanimous decision against Trump.
In which case, he and his lawyers (although they are hardly the first to argue this) claiming that he has the power to pardon himself is completely harmless, because if he actually attempted to use it, a court would say his pardon is of no effect. So his statement itself (as opposed to actually committing something horrible and then trying to get away with it) is a big, fat nothing.
Right?
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@AbaraXas
How often does the mere discussion involve accusations of being a dictator?
It holds the same weight - none, just discussion.
But it is very different than directly accusing members here of taking part in a criminal conspiracy (note that you spoke directly to members: "You NTs and liberals..." so it wasn't just a rhetorical statement". )
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In which case, he and his lawyers (although they are hardly the first to argue this) claiming that he has the power to pardon himself is completely harmless, because if he actually attempted to use it, a court would say his pardon is of no effect. So it's a big, fat nothing.
Right?
Right--except that his moronic claim, struck down so quickly, would support the leftist narrative that he is a dangerous man who believes he is above every law. Therein consists the really bad news concerning his tweet.
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@Maj. Bill Martin
Because impeachment and dictator are the talking points of the day.
The crime of Russian collusion was from the beginning, a ruse, an insurance policy. Its purpose was not criminal prosecution but political damage, though finding unrelated crimes were a bonus and ancillary to democrats goal of impeachment. With no underlying crime, their purpose now is to hurt the republicans and President Trump in the midterms through a thousand cuts and so make impeachment more likely should democrats gain a majority.
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Right--except that his moronic claim, struck down so quickly, would support the leftist narrative that he is a dangerous man who believes he is above every law. Therein consists the really bad news concerning his tweet.
Wait a minute.
The only way this would even get in front of the courts in the first place is if 1) Trump committed some criminal act for which he pardoned himself, 2) Trump is then impeached and removed from office, and 3) He is then prosecuted anyway, asserts the pardon as a defense, and the issue then goes into the court system. At that point -- he's already been impeached and removed -- the "leftist narrative" about him is pretty much irrelevant.
Now, if you want to argue that it is politically tone-deaf for him to tweet that in the first place, fine. But that is not the same thing as people here going off on how this is a prelude to dictatorship. It's just being used to whip up political hysteria, which is the exact thing I said it was in the first place.
Now, the real issue is actually a bit more subtle -- the "I can pardon myself" argument is one thread of an argument about why the President doesn't have to respond to a subpoena, which was an argument raised in a letter from his attorneys to Mueller. Trump's tweet wasn't how this story broke -- it was Mueller's office is who leaked it in the first place.
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The USSC has no say in the matter. Read the Constitution. The President right to pardon is unconstrained except for impeachment. The USSC does not rule the county.
888high58888
Thank You!
In this head long rush to "get Trump for something" people aren't recognizing there is a constitutional process. I'm sure a big part of the reason they are ignoring the clearly defined process is because they can't get the results they want if they follow it. Also, the unintended consequences for not following the prescribed constitutional process would be a neutering of the executive office, since a POTUS could be dragged into court for any proceeding and would not have time to fulfill his duties.
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The crime of Russian collusion was from the beginning, a ruse, an insurance policy. Its purpose was not criminal prosecution but political damage, though finding unrelated crimes were a bonus and ancillary to democrats goal of impeachment. With no underlying crime, their purpose now is to hurt the republicans and President Trump in the midterms through a thousand cuts and so make impeachment more likely should democrats gain a majority.
@aligncare
Rather then use the word impeachment, call it what it is, the overthrow of a duly elected President through lies and conspiracy. Regardless of Trumps twitter habits or language he used on a bus 20 years ago, forcing the President from office through these methods is very dangerous precedent. ANYONE who supports that action is in the same category in my view.
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In which case, he and his lawyers (although they are hardly the first to argue this) claiming that he has the power to pardon himself is completely harmless, because if he actually attempted to use it, a court would say his pardon is of no effect. So his statement itself (as opposed to actually committing something horrible and then trying to get away with it) is a big, fat nothing.
Right?
Not in politics.
In an atmosphere where 'the seriousness of the charge' is more important than evidence to craft public opinion, the fact Trump cannot avoid the appearance of evil and merely adds gasoline to the flames is beyond stupid on his part.
I'm more intrigued by the double-standard from those who would have gone berserk had Obama said this (and rightfully so) versus all the justifications and Trumpsplaining going on for why this is a big fat nothing burger.
Perception is reality - ESPECIALLY in politics.
Trump and his fanbase are simply sabotaging their own with this 'It's Okay when WE DO IT' crap. He isn't going to be winning anyone over to his side with the kind of tweets and statements made by Trump and Rudy in the last couple days. Just the opposite.
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The USSC has no say in the matter. Read the Constitution. The President right to pardon is unconstrained except for impeachment. The USSC does not rule the county.
Well....it's not our readings of the Constitution that ultimately will determine how the legal system proceeds. It's the Supreme Court's rulings that ultimately will matter, whether you believe that should be the case or not.
As it happens, I don't agree with your reading anyway. I think the question of whether a President can pardon himself is sui generis, and would be viewed that way by the Court.
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Not in politics.
In an atmosphere where 'the seriousness of the charge' is more important than evidence to craft public opinion, the fact Trump cannot avoid the appearance of evil and merely adds gasoline to the flames is beyond stupid on his part.
Look, if you want to argue that it was politically stupid of Trump's lawyers to make that argument, fine. I think that's a reasonable point. But there's a lot of discussion here that goes beyond it being a self-inflicted bit of purely political stupidity, to being the prelude to actual dictatorship. In substance -- as opposed to purely political considerations -- it's a big fat nothing.
I'm more intrigued by the double-standard from those who would have gone berserk had Obama said this (and rightfully so) versus all the justifications and Trumpsplaining going on for why this is a big fat nothing burger.
Well, I assume you'd include me in there, but I think you're misperceiving my point. My point is that in the event a Presidential self-pardon actually happens, the real
issue is going to be the underlying act that was committed, not the lame attempt to self-pardon. Also, I'm a lawyer, so I don't get offended by someone's statement of what they think the law is. I may laugh at them, but I don't get offended by the argument.
Trump and his fanbase are simply sabotaging their own with this 'It's Okay when WE DO IT' crap. He isn't going to be winning anyone over to his side with the kind of tweets and statements made by Trump and Rudy in the last couple days. Just the opposite.
It's nice to see you so concerned about what Trump may be doing to his poll numbers!
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@Once-Ler @INVAR
You NTs and leftists are the ones guilty of a conspiracy and of illegally trying to remove a duly elected President. Talk about collusion.
Rather then use the word impeachment, call it what it is, the overthrow of a duly elected President through lies and conspiracy....ANYONE who supports that action is in the same category in my view.
This is exactly why I consider people like you to be a more direct, clear and present danger to what remains of our liberties than from the Leftists.
Being declared Conspirators and Guilty of treason without so much as a trial or evidence beyond your declarations that our opinions are sedition is far more egregious than the typical crap we get flung flung at us from the monkeys on the Left.
Perhaps your clairvoyance of our motives and intentions will serve you well in the Pre-Crime division of the Thought Police.
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@aligncare
Rather then use the word impeachment, call it what it is, the overthrow of a duly elected President through lies and conspiracy. Regardless of Trumps twitter habits or language he used on a bus 20 years ago, forcing the President from office through these methods is very dangerous precedent. ANYONE who supports that action is in the same category in my view.
Agree.
In my opinion republican and conservative NeverTrumpers hate Trump so much that it blinds them to what’s happening or to how they’re being used to gin up general disapproval with every breathless media leak and lie. Fears of a dictatorship is just the latest example of this hysteria.
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Trump's tweet wasn't how this story broke -- it was Mueller's office is who leaked it in the first place.
Are you sure about that? When the Mueller questions were leaked, Trump called it ‘disgraceful’ and everyone blamed the Mueller team. Turns out, it was from the Trump camp.
The Times reports that Mueller’s questions were leaked by “a person outside Mr. Trump’s legal team.†This doesn’t preclude it being someone close to Trump who is not on that team or that his team may have arranged the leak via someone else.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2018/05/01/muellers-questions-for-trump-have-leaked-here-are-three-big-takeaways/?utm_term=.01606154b653 (https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2018/05/01/muellers-questions-for-trump-have-leaked-here-are-three-big-takeaways/?utm_term=.01606154b653)
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Sure it is. You guys are getting way ahead of yourselves, and confusing what is actually going on.. All he has done here that has you guys in such a tizzy is make a statement about what the law is. That is not the same as if he had actually committed some heinous crime, which would be something worthy of getting upset.
If such a pardon is valid, then Trump's statement about him having the power to pardon himself is true. Right? So why would you be pissed at someone for making a true, accurate statement about what the law is? It's just stating a fact.
But again, you're confusing him actually committing a heinous act and pardoning himself, with him saying that he would have the legal right to do that under the Constitution. Those are two different things.
Just to be clear, I ain’t that upset. To me it’s just another non sequitur from Trump, and certainly not that much of a doozy. It does, however, suggest to me a certain quiet desperation amongst his inner sanctum.
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Fears of a dictatorship is just the latest example of this hysteria.
That's been my point in this thread. The argument raised by his lawyers in that letter to Mueller may be politically tone-deaf, and dumb for that reason. But you've got people saying that the mere making of that argument in a legal letter is a sign that Trump is trying to create a dictatorship, and that is simply ridiculous. And the people making that argument are either not thinking it through, or a deliberately trying to push a false narrative to get him removed from office simply for making that statement.
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Just to be clear, I ain’t that upset. To me it’s just another non sequitur from Trump, and certainly not that much of a doozy. It does, however, suggest to me a certain quiet desperation amongst his inner sanctum.
Except it's just part of a technical legal argument they're making to Mueller's office as to why they would not have to comply with a subpoena. It's not like this argument was advanced publicly for its own sake.
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But there's a lot of discussion here that goes beyond it being a self-inflicted bit of purely political stupidity, to being the prelude to actual dictatorship. In substance -- as opposed to purely political considerations -- it's a big fat nothing.
Well since Congress has essentially helped to create a defacto Imperial Executive under Obama and surrender their own constitutional obligations to the Executive during his tenure, I think it is absolutely vital to be concerned about the MINDSET of a person in that office that telegraphs intentions that can be rightfully be perceived as a prelude and portent to rule by decree. I do not care what party or person sits in that office that makes such statements that will be perceived as such.
My point is that in the event a Presidential self-pardon actually happens, the realissue is going to be the underlying act that was committed, not the lame attempt to self-pardon.
You mean the self-pardon that will come BEFORE any articles are filed or proceedings being attempted? Again, perception is reality - especially in politics and all Trump has done is hand the Democrats and the Establishment Statists more rope they will use to hang him in the minds of the public. Unless Trump WANTS this circus to happen for the ratings and all the upheaval it will cause, which is entirely possible since it seems this guy thrives on chaos.
It's nice to see you so concerned about what Trump may be doing to his poll numbers!
I'm not. I'm simply discussing perceptions being reality in the minds of the vast, vast, vast majority of people who do not care about the legal minutiae of whether or not Trump can legally pardon himself. Already on this board this morning I have read comments of Trump supporters that opine that they are either regretting their vote or abandoning their hopes for Trump as he and his Admin continue to make stupid and asinine statements.
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Except it's just part of a technical legal argument they're making to Mueller's office as to why they would not have to comply with a subpoena. It's not like this argument was advanced publicly for its own sake.
Which by its silliness simply undermines the rest of the letter.
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Which by its silliness simply undermines the rest of the letter.
For political reasons, I'd agree that isn't a good argument to make. You're giving your foes an issue with which they can demagogue you. But that's what this is -- a political miscalculation. Not the end of the Republic -- as much as some foes of Trump would like it to be.
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Now, if you want to argue that it is politically tone-deaf for him to tweet that in the first place, fine. But that is not the same thing as people here going off on how this is a prelude to dictatorship. It's just being used to whip up political hysteria, which is the exact thing I said it was in the first place.
I'm not one of those guys who seem to be saying his tweet is a prelude to dictatorship. I am actually saying what you are saying--but I don't think Trump's tweet is just a tempest in a teapot. The MSM is not going to let this go away quietly now that Trump has posted his moronic tweet. Heck, even Trump's arguably proper tweets get used against him; now we have a flagrantly improper, obviously un-Constitutional position from our POTUS going viral. It is being used to whip up political hysteria. The temporary distress on TBR is probably a lot less than the longer-term public backlash will be against Trump.
Now, the real issue is actually a bit more subtle -- the "I can pardon myself" argument is one thread of an argument about why the President doesn't have to respond to a subpoena, which was an argument raised in a letter from his attorneys to Mueller. Trump's tweet wasn't how this story broke -- it was Mueller's office is who leaked it in the first place.
Thanks for the clarification. But as despicable as the leak was, I think it's almost equally despicable--stupidity-wise--that Trump's attorneys gave Mueller legally asinine material for a damaging leak.
My point is that the lawyerly (?) idea that it was "one thread of the argument" against Mueller's out-of-bounds behavior doesn't make it something that should have been included in the larger argument. Isn't it axiomatic with good lawyers that one should never offer a horrible argument in support of a proper argument? Heck, a horrible argument will become the enemy of the proper argument--especially when crap like the horrible argument gets leaked out to our dumbed down hoi polloi, who will be simultaneously hearing Giuliani (correctly!) saying that a sitting POTUS couldn't be indicted even if he were to shoot Comey. (And the whole mess will get rolled up with Trump's disgusting campaign statement in 2016 that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and he would still be popular.)
The reason why the Mueller team leaked the "one thread of the argument" is precisely because it was a despicable thread of argumentation and because the public as a whole would regard it as despicable.
In short, the bad argument was extraordinarily inflammatory, especially considering the widespread disgust people already have for Trump. Confirming the White House's pseudo-legal stance by Trump's very own tweeting of the patently stupid "opinions" of "top legal scholars" have made the entire moronic mess flowing from the White House even more inflammatory in the public mind. Trump is so politically tone-deaf (i.e.,narcissistic) that he probably thought it was okay to stipulate that his lawyers' atrocious argument was part of the discussion with Mueller.
The upshot of this is that Trump's tweet, will now tend to make the ignoramuses in our electorate incorrectly hear Giuliani's CORRECT argument against Mueller's investigation.
And the first time Trump takes aggressive, possibly even martial-law action (against sanctuary cities, for example), the self-righteous lefties who have called Trump as bad as or even worse than Hitler will get traction for recruitment to their Resistance. Thus, I suspect that the MSM is deliberately going to keep the controversy alive until it bears very evil fruit.
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I'm curious what the federalist papers say on the topic. Those are always good to get a full meaning behind what's in the Constitution.
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I'm curious what the federalist papers say on the topic. Those are always good to get a full meaning behind what's in the Constitution.
It's discussed in No. 74.
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed74.asp (http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed74.asp)
I personally don't think the rationale applies to self-pardons.
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In short, the bad argument was extraordinarily inflammatory, especially considering the widespread disgust people already have for Trump.
Well...nothing is going to change that. Those who hate him aren't going to hate him any more or less for this. Not to the extent it matters, anyway. It just the fodder of choice until there's something else.
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While Trump may be 100% wrong in what he says, I must commend him for his uncanny ability to keep his detractors off balance in a constant state of indignation.
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I'm curious what the federalist papers say on the topic. Those are always good to get a full meaning behind what's in the Constitution.
I believe Oceander's post #52 destroys the scenario of a POTUS pardoning himself. And I don't think it takes a lawyer to figure this out.
In fact, I think that any lawyer who "finds" that the Constitution was intending, among other things, to give a POTUS an automatic "get out of jail free card," then that lawyer is a loophole-minded crook who cares not one whit for what our Framers actually intended.
Sadly, we do have a lot of shrewd but decidedly bad lawyers. (Ask Prince Hal how pervasive the problem is. Ask Thomas Jefferson how dangerous "activist judges" are.) Bad lawyers are oddly lawless legalists in that they have no regard for, much less respect for, the spirit of the law. And we cannot discern the spirit of the Constitution unless we notice that the entire point of drafting the Constitution was to create a document that would serve as the head of the Body Politic. In a terribly important manner of speaking, the Constitution was intended to make sure that we have no human being (or committee of human beings) despotically ruling us. To use Plato's language, our Republic needed a Benevolent Despot to rule us, but our wise Framers realized that we needed to install that Benevolent Despot in the form of a document that supremely rules the Body Politic, not a person, not even a power-grabbing branch of government.
Even when we confess that a document drafted by the wisest assemblage of political philosophers in history still poses exegetical challenges for interpretation, a proper hermeneutic must consider the above-stated purpose of the Constitution. Constitutional law is not to be handled as a bunch of inadvertently unclosed loopholes opening up opportunities for lawlessness. Lawlessness invariably leads to tyranny.
As George Washington himself confessed, he was to function in a way of presiding in a way of decency and order under the Constitution, not by ruling as the Emperor (Despot) of the United States. Impeachment was the Constitutional provision intended as a necessary provision for reining him in if he becomes lawless--after which impeachment he is obviously prosecutable as an accused criminal, for the final resolution of his high crimes and misdemeanors. But if a POTUS has a "get out of jail free card," he can do monumental, tyrannical damage even under the relatively minor threat of impeachment.
Finally, if the loophole a__holes had their way, they would give a "get out of jail free card" to a POTUS whom they liked (or who paid for their lawyerly fees). The whole scenario is so sick, so disgusting that I doubt that the Federalist Papers would have deigned to cover the matter of a President pardoning himself. Perhaps the Federalist Papers do talk about the reasons for giving the POTUS the right to pardon others, but I suspect that even Alexander Hamilton would turn over in his grave if he knew we were even discussing the matter of whether the right to pardon includes a POTUS pardoning himself.
Even if legalistic lawyers claim that the Constitution allows such a scenario, it definitely does not. The very idea is an insult to our Republic.
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Even if legalistic lawyers claim that the Constitution allows such a scenario, it definitely does not. The very idea is an insult to our Republic.
:amen:
As the day goes on I suspect this is more reality TV stuff from Trump tbh. Genius or idiotic, i cannot say.
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Let me say...thank goodness for Bill Martin. You are an island of sanity in a sea of dimwitted, emotionally driven, fact deprived absurdities in this thread.
The presidential power to pardon any American is absolute AS PER the Constitution itself. The President and his lawyer simply stated this fact.
Further, the Supreme Court can say what it will, but it is a co-equal branch and has no authority to limit or remove a constitutionally granted power from another branch of government. There are only two checks that can redress a president who has committed a criminal act and/or exceeded the boundaries of justice while in the Presidency...the ballot box, and impeachment. That is the design our Founding Fathers created and delineated in the Constitution. This is not dictatorial in any way, though it creates a strong Executive (which was their intention), BECAUSE it provides these instruments for removing a President.
Republican Rome fell, in part, due to neverending legal prosecutions of men who had served in Executive positions...Governorships and in the Curule chair. Caesar crossed the Rubicon because the Senate would not grant him immunity from the lawsuits and prosecutions of his Senatorial opponents...he repeatedly offered to lay down arms and surrender power if the Senate was willing to forego such actions. This is relevant, because our current trend in criminalizing political opponents is a big step down that road to true dictatorship...this is deeply relevant in today's context. For example, while I deeply dislike Hillary and believe Obama violated the law in using the FBI/CIA as a political weapon against the opposing party...it is important that we NEVER attempt to prosecute, much less convict, either of them. Their actions should be investigated and fully exposed, and a full pardon then immediately issued...because down the road of prosecuting defeated political opponents and/or criminalizing the political acts of sitting Presidents...lies the collapse of our Republic.
The law must never be used to punish political enemies...even when they are genuinely guilty of political illegalities (capital crimes like murder and such do not fall into this category of course). Our political battles MUST be restricted to the arena of electoral politics...if we fail in this as a nation, we will not long maintain our Republic, much as the Romans lost theirs.
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Let me say...thank goodness for Bill Martin. You are an island of sanity in a sea of dimwitted, emotionally driven, fact deprived absurdities in this thread.
The presidential power to pardon any American is absolute AS PER the Constitution itself. The President and his lawyer simply stated this fact.
Further, the Supreme Court can say what it will, but it is a co-equal branch and has no authority to limit or remove a constitutionally granted power from another branch of government. There are only two checks that can redress a president who has committed a criminal act and/or exceeded the boundaries of justice while in the Presidency...the ballot box, and impeachment. That is the design our Founding Fathers created and delineated in the Constitution. This is not dictatorial in any way, though it creates a strong Executive (which was their intention), BECAUSE it provides these instruments for removing a President.
Republican Rome fell, in part, due to neverending legal prosecutions of men who had served in Executive positions...Governorships and in the Curule chair. Caesar crossed the Rubicon because the Senate would not grant him immunity from the lawsuits and prosecutions of his Senatorial opponents...he repeatedly offered to lay down arms and surrender power if the Senate was willing to forego such actions. This is relevant, because our current trend in criminalizing political opponents is a big step down that road to true dictatorship...this is deeply relevant in today's context. For example, while I deeply dislike Hillary and believe Obama violated the law in using the FBI/CIA as a political weapon against the opposing party...it is important that we NEVER attempt to prosecute, much less convict, either of them. Their actions should be investigated and fully exposed, and a full pardon then immediately issued...because down the road of prosecuting defeated political opponents and/or criminalizing the political acts of sitting Presidents...lies the collapse of our Republic.
The law must never be used to punish political enemies...even when they are genuinely guilty of political illegalities (capital crimes like murder and such do not fall into this category of course). Our political battles MUST be restricted to the arena of electoral politics...if we fail in this as a nation, we will not long maintain our Republic, much as the Romans lost theirs.
WWWW. :tongue2:
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The law must never be used to punish political enemies...even when they are genuinely guilty of political illegalities (capital crimes like murder and such do not fall into this category of course).
Then all you have done is to legalize lawlessness as long as it is committed by politicians and the politicly-connected.
And it is precisely how corruption becomes so endemic to how the system operates, that no correction is possible lest the entire edifice of the country collapses with it.
It's just another avenue of how tyranny is established.
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'The president hasn’t done anything wrong,' Sarah Sanders says 9 times in 15 minutes
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders on Monday sidestepped questions from reporters about President Trump’s assertion that he has the “absolute right†to pardon himself, arguing that he wouldn’t need to because the president “hasn’t done anything wrong.â€
“Thankfully, the president hasn’t done anything wrong and wouldn’t have any need for a pardon,†Sanders said when first asked about Trump’s tweeted claim.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/president-hasnt-done-anything-wrong-sarah-sanders-says-9-times-15-minutes-202449988.html (https://www.yahoo.com/news/president-hasnt-done-anything-wrong-sarah-sanders-says-9-times-15-minutes-202449988.html)
She's already been hung out to dry twice, with the Daniels payment and the Don Jr statement.
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'The president hasn’t done anything wrong,' Sarah Sanders says 9 times in 15 minutes
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders on Monday sidestepped questions from reporters about President Trump’s assertion that he has the “absolute right†to pardon himself, arguing that he wouldn’t need to because the president “hasn’t done anything wrong.â€
“Thankfully, the president hasn’t done anything wrong and wouldn’t have any need for a pardon,†Sanders said when first asked about Trump’s tweeted claim.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/president-hasnt-done-anything-wrong-sarah-sanders-says-9-times-15-minutes-202449988.html (https://www.yahoo.com/news/president-hasnt-done-anything-wrong-sarah-sanders-says-9-times-15-minutes-202449988.html)
She's already been hung out to dry twice, with the Daniels payment and the Don Jr statement.
Exactly what has President Trump done wrong? What crime(s) has been committed? Why does Mueller continue an investigation when several Congressmen have come forward and stated that there is no collusion? Why does Clinton/Bammy/Holder/Rice/Jarret, etc., continue to get a free pass? Why are Rosenstein and Mueller still in play?
So what if Sanders stated that the POTUS has done nothing wrong several times.
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Exactly what has President Trump done wrong? What crime(s) has been committed? Why does Mueller continue an investigation when several Congressmen have come forward and stated that there is no collusion? Why does Clinton/Bammy/Holder/Rice/Jarret, etc., continue to get a free pass? Why are Rosenstein and Mueller still in play?
So what if Sanders stated that the POTUS has done nothing wrong several times.
I'll attempt to answer you in the order asked. We don't know yet, since the Mueller and SDNY investigations are ongoing. Again, we don't know yet, since the Mueller and SDNY investigations are ongoing. The members of Congress have different levels of access to evidence. Because the president himself said the Clinton, et al stuff was good for the campaign, but now, we don't care so much. Because despite all his bluster, Trump knows firing them is too costly, politically.
She has no idea if he's done anything wrong and she's looked foolish with previous denials on other matters.
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I'll attempt to answer you in the order asked. We don't know yet, since the Mueller and SDNY investigations are ongoing. Again, we don't know yet, since the Mueller and SDNY investigations are ongoing. The members of Congress have different levels of access to evidence. Because the president himself said the Clinton, et al stuff was good for the campaign, but now, we don't care so much. Because despite all his bluster, Trump knows firing them is too costly, politically.
She has no idea if he's done anything wrong and she's looked foolish with previous denials on other matters.
Just as several of Sanders' past statements have been proven to be inaccurate, I suspect future ones will be also if she continues to be Trump's press secretary. I believe Trump lies to her and she simply repeats the lies (the alternative is that she knowingly lies, which I doubt). As you note, she has no way of knowing whether Trump has done anything wrong beyond him telling her he hasn't, and he appears to lie all the time.
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Then all you have done is to legalize lawlessness as long as it is committed by politicians and the politicly-connected.
And it is precisely how corruption becomes so endemic to how the system operates, that no correction is possible lest the entire edifice of the country collapses with it.
It's just another avenue of how tyranny is established.
It legalizes absolutely nothing. And this is not about extortion, or murder, or kidnapping or any non-political criminal action....what you do NOT do is attempt to prosecute prior Presidential administrations and/or defeated Presidential campaigns. Their actions are chastized by the voters, if you criminalize political activity you invite instability and 3rd world style governance by retribution. What you DO, is to investigate and fully expose actions to the public scrutiny...from there, it is the job of voters to eliminate corruption and lawlessness. If they chose not to do so, than we will have corruption...and there is no criminalization of political activity that could ever stop it. The integrity of government rests in the ethical hands of those who vote.
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I'll attempt to answer you in the order asked. We don't know yet, since the Mueller and SDNY investigations are ongoing. Again, we don't know yet, since the Mueller and SDNY investigations are ongoing. The members of Congress have different levels of access to evidence. Because the president himself said the Clinton, et al stuff was good for the campaign, but now, we don't care so much. Because despite all his bluster, Trump knows firing them is too costly, politically.
She has no idea if he's done anything wrong and she's looked foolish with previous denials on other matters.
You miss the point entirely.
To date, there is zero evidence of any wrongdoing. Asserting that some investigator somewhere might have something...is void of any validity whatsoever.
Its not that we don't know YET, we simply don't know of ANY evidence at all. Period. And that's AFTER years of investigation, corruptly efforting to find or make a criminal of the president while having no evidence of a crime.
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You miss the point entirely.
To date, there is zero evidence of any wrongdoing. Asserting that some investigator somewhere might have something...is void of any validity whatsoever.
Its not that we don't know YET, we simply don't know of ANY evidence at all. Period. And that's AFTER years of investigation, corruptly efforting to find or make a criminal of the president while having no evidence of a crime.
No, you miss the point. There are people who are cooperating and have yet to reach sentencing. Manafort is still being prosecuted and may or may not cooperate. They haven’t come close to getting through all the material in the Cohen case. Nobody, outside of the investigation team, knows anything.
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I'll attempt to answer you in the order asked. We don't know yet, since the Mueller and SDNY investigations are ongoing. Again, we don't know yet, since the Mueller and SDNY investigations are ongoing. The members of Congress have different levels of access to evidence. Because the president himself said the Clinton, et al stuff was good for the campaign, but now, we don't care so much. Because despite all his bluster, Trump knows firing them is too costly, politically.
She has no idea if he's done anything wrong and she's looked foolish with previous denials on other matters.
Oh come on here. Mueller and Rosenstein both worked under or for the Clintons/Bammy in way or another. They are both involved in some way with Uranium One, yet, these are the two investigating Trump collusion? Connect the dots. The longer the investigation continues the more time that evidence and proof against those truly involved in Russian collusion; namely Clinton and Bammy is buried for good.
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Oh come on here. Mueller and Rosenstein both worked under or for the Clintons/Bammy in way or another. They are both involved in some way with Uranium One, yet, these are the two investigating Trump collusion? Connect the dots. The longer the investigation continues the more time that evidence and proof against those truly involved in Russian collusion; namely Clinton and Bammy is buried for good.
Mueller is a registered Republican and Rosenstein was a Trump Administration appointee: “Only the best peopleâ€.
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Oh come on here. Mueller and Rosenstein both worked under or for the Clintons/Bammy in way or another. They are both involved in some way with Uranium One, yet, these are the two investigating Trump collusion? Connect the dots. The longer the investigation continues the more time that evidence and proof against those truly involved in Russian collusion; namely Clinton and Bammy is buried for good.
You come on. Trump is the one who is supposed to be in charge of the DOJ. He can order Wray to conduct an investigation and suggest another special counsel (as he has in the investigation of the investigation), even though he has recently said the SC is unconstitutional. As with most politicians, he doesn't really want the inquest, he wants the issue open to use for rallying his base.
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It legalizes absolutely nothing. And this is not about extortion, or murder, or kidnapping or any non-political criminal action....what you do NOT do is attempt to prosecute prior Presidential administrations and/or defeated Presidential campaigns. Their actions are chastized by the voters, if you criminalize political activity you invite instability and 3rd world style governance by retribution. What you DO, is to investigate and fully expose actions to the public scrutiny...from there, it is the job of voters to eliminate corruption and lawlessness. If they chose not to do so, than we will have corruption...and there is no criminalization of political activity that could ever stop it.
Such rot and bullshit. All you just did was justify the fact that politicians are above the law. Voters have no power to eliminate corruption and lawlessness outside of voting for someone FOR office. They have no power to prosecute corruption, bribery, extortion, graft and treason by those holding office and using that office to break the law to feather their own nests or spy on citizens for use in blackmail or intimidation. Creating a political caste system whereby the rule of law cannot be applied to politicians who violate the rule of law is simply tyranny via another avenue, and the road we are already on.
The integrity of government rests in the ethical hands of those who vote.
You are obviously oblivious to the institutionalized corruption in such places as Cook County, IL. Such a statement is laughable on it's face.
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Such rot and bullshit. All you just did was justify the fact that politicians are above the law. Voters have no power to eliminate corruption and lawlessness outside of voting for someone FOR office. They have no power to prosecute corruption, bribery, extortion, graft and treason by those holding office and using that office to break the law to feather their own nests or spy on citizens for use in blackmail or intimidation. Creating a political caste system whereby the rule of law cannot be applied to politicians who violate the rule of law is simply tyranny via another avenue, and the road we are already on.
You are obviously oblivious to the institutionalized corruption in such places as Cook County, IL. Such a statement is laughable on it's face.
Its a no returns policy. If the goods are bad, too bad. It is unreasonable in todays politics to believe any of them are working for you.
“Yes, We’re Corruptâ€: A List of Politicians Admitting That Money Controls Politics
Jon Schwarz
July 30 2015, 9:23 a.m.
https://theintercept.com/2015/07/30/politicians-admitting-obvious-fact-money-affects-vote/
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A statement from Ted Cruz on this.
On the question of whether a president can pardon himself, we're seeing an abundance of knee-jerk partisanship and dishonest journalism. Virtually every Dem is saying "of course not, the president can't pardon himself (mostly because we hate Trump)." On the other hand, some Rs are saying "of course the president can."
If we were actually focusing on the Constitution, the answer would be more complicated. The text of the Constitution provides, the President "shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment." That text has no limitation on WHOM can be pardoned (although nobody can be pardoned from impeachment or for non-federal offenses).
However, in the 1970s, the Department of Justice did issue a legal opinion that the president cannot pardon himself, relying on the principle that nobody can be the judge in his own case. That legal principle has a long and venerable history, but it is not reflected in the constitutional text.
Whether the Department of Justice opinion is right is an open legal question, with scholars on both sides of the political spectrum disagreeing in good faith.
Some dishonest journalists have attacked me for "taking 18 seconds" to answer -- without acknowledging that I was walking through the Capitol, late to a meeting, and simply ignoring a question that a reporter had called out at me (as senators do every single day in the Capitol). When reporters chased me down the hall, and another asked the question again, I chose to answer.
Yet others (see https://bit.ly/2M0mf6e) have focused on my criticisms of President Obama's abuse of executive power, suggesting that it is somehow hypocritical not to oppose Trump's assertion of executive power. They cite a law review article I wrote saying that Obama's executive amnesty was illegal, and that the pardon power did not justify it. What those attacks miss is that it is clear that (1) pardons must be retrospective (looking to crimes in the past), not prospective (pardoning future crimes), and (2) they must be addressed to specific persons, not generic categories of offenses. Both are straightforward legal propositions; neither is implicated because they do not concern WHOM can be pardoned.
Finally, other partisan journalists have attacked me for saying "that is not a constitutional issue I have studied, so I will withhold judgment at this point." That was true then, and is true now. This is not a question one should answer based on knee-jerk partisanship, as opposed to careful constitutional analysis. As for me, I still haven't studied the issue at that level of detail, and I don't intend to -- because this is nothing more than an academic debate. At this point, none of the investigations has demonstrated any criminal conduct needing to be pardoned, as much as those who hate the president might wish otherwise.
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A statement from Ted Cruz on this.
On the question of whether a president can pardon himself, we're seeing an abundance of knee-jerk partisanship and dishonest journalism. Virtually every Dem is saying "of course not, the president can't pardon himself (mostly because we hate Trump)." On the other hand, some Rs are saying "of course the president can."
If we were actually focusing on the Constitution, the answer would be more complicated. The text of the Constitution provides, the President "shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment." That text has no limitation on WHOM can be pardoned (although nobody can be pardoned from impeachment or for non-federal offenses).
However, in the 1970s, the Department of Justice did issue a legal opinion that the president cannot pardon himself, relying on the principle that nobody can be the judge in his own case. That legal principle has a long and venerable history, but it is not reflected in the constitutional text.
Whether the Department of Justice opinion is right is an open legal question, with scholars on both sides of the political spectrum disagreeing in good faith.
Some dishonest journalists have attacked me for "taking 18 seconds" to answer -- without acknowledging that I was walking through the Capitol, late to a meeting, and simply ignoring a question that a reporter had called out at me (as senators do every single day in the Capitol). When reporters chased me down the hall, and another asked the question again, I chose to answer.
Yet others (see https://bit.ly/2M0mf6e) have focused on my criticisms of President Obama's abuse of executive power, suggesting that it is somehow hypocritical not to oppose Trump's assertion of executive power. They cite a law review article I wrote saying that Obama's executive amnesty was illegal, and that the pardon power did not justify it. What those attacks miss is that it is clear that (1) pardons must be retrospective (looking to crimes in the past), not prospective (pardoning future crimes), and (2) they must be addressed to specific persons, not generic categories of offenses. Both are straightforward legal propositions; neither is implicated because they do not concern WHOM can be pardoned.
Finally, other partisan journalists have attacked me for saying "that is not a constitutional issue I have studied, so I will withhold judgment at this point." That was true then, and is true now. This is not a question one should answer based on knee-jerk partisanship, as opposed to careful constitutional analysis. As for me, I still haven't studied the issue at that level of detail, and I don't intend to -- because this is nothing more than an academic debate. At this point, none of the investigations has demonstrated any criminal conduct needing to be pardoned, as much as those who hate the president might wish otherwise.
If BillMartin and I can’t quiet the absurd “Trump thinks he is a dictator†crazies, perhaps Ted Cruz’s superb answer above will...assuming thes Trump-haters can even allow reason and common sense to overcome blind hatred. In their eyes, introspection and simple acknowledgement of the intent of the Constitution is hypocritical and tyrannical. Ted beautifully highlight the insanity of such a position. Well said Mr. Cruz...what great things you could do as an SCJ!
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If BillMartin and I can’t quiet the absurd “Trump thinks he is a dictator†crazies, perhaps Ted Cruz’s superb answer above will...assuming thes Trump-haters can even allow reason and common sense to overcome blind hatred. In their eyes, introspection and simple acknowledgement of the intent of the Constitution is hypocritical and tyrannical. Ted beautifully highlight the insanity of such a position. Well said Mr. Cruz...what great things you could do as an SCJ!
Superlative, judicious statement by Sen. Cruz. He rightly recognizes that the real concern should be the frothing at the mouth, partisan reactions to Trump's statement.
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A statement from Ted Cruz on this.
Sen Cruz was already told what to think by tweet. He needs to get with the program.
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A statement from Ted Cruz on this.
Wow, to think we could have gotten this rhetorical skill, rather than idiotic tweets.
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Ted's response was excellent ....."This is not a question one should answer based on knee-jerk partisanship, as opposed to careful constitutional analysis. As for me, I still haven't studied the issue at that level of detail, and I don't intend to -- because this is nothing more than an academic debate. At this point, none of the investigations has demonstrated any criminal conduct needing to be pardoned, as much as those who hate the president might wish otherwise."
That's it in a nutshell. None of the investigations has proven that President Trump has done anything wrong. Yet we have the MSM and others in all of their glorious hate-filled vendetta against the President on a witch hunt.
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Wow, to think we could have gotten this rhetorical skill, rather than idiotic tweets.
Yes Ted Cruz has a brilliant mind and good morals. Unfortunately he lacked the charisma and willingness/ ability to play dirty. Which is apparently what's needed to win the white house.
Cruz is a class act.
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The constitution of the United States predates the department of justice by 83 years. I doubt a department of justice legal opinion is the last word on this issue.
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This non-event is just more bread and circuses to keep the sheeple's minds off the real events in the world.
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Yes Ted Cruz has a brilliant mind and good morals. Unfortunately he lacked the charisma and willingness/ ability to play dirty. Which is apparently what's needed to win the white house.
Cruz is a class act.
Cruz ran the dirtiest campaign I ever saw. I lost a lot of respect for him once I realized what a dirty
lying phony he was.
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This non-event is just more bread and circuses to keep the sheeple's minds off the real events in the world.
Agreed...same thing with the Eagles dis-invitation. Anything is better than the tightening noose held by Mueller.
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Cruz ran the dirtiest campaign I ever saw. I lost a lot of respect for him once I realized what a dirty
lying phony he was.
plus his dad killed JFK and his wife is a dog.
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"that is not a constitutional issue I have studied - Sen Ted Cruz"
I'm awarding 5 points to President Trump for making this possible.
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Cruz ran the dirtiest campaign I ever saw. I lost a lot of respect for him once I realized what a dirty
lying phony he was.
He's worse than Hitlertm
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Agreed...same thing with the Eagles dis-invitation. Anything is better than the tightening noose held by Mueller.
I turned off the news after the election except for the BBC and the occasional riot. The American media finally quit pretending to be unbiased. If anything important does happen, they act annoyed because it diverts us from their nonsense.
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The American media finally quit pretending to be unbiased.
They may have admitted it to themselves but not to their consumers. Other than that I agree with your post. I really liked the observation about the media getting annoyed because their narrative gets hijacked by important events.
I wish I had the will power to get out of the whole sham, I can only last a few days to week offline. The thing is the circus is so entertaining, and the bread ain't that bad either.
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They may have admitted it to themselves but not to their consumers. Other than that I agree with your post. I really liked the observation about the media getting annoyed because their narrative gets hijacked by important events.
I wish I had the will power to get out of the whole sham, I can only last a few days to week offline. The thing is the circus is so entertaining, and the bread ain't that bad either.
@Once-Ler
You should try the veal.
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@driftdiver, good statement from Cruz. Do you have a link for that?
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@driftdiver, good statement from Cruz. Do you have a link for that?
I pulled it off his facebook page.
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He seems to have edited his facebook as i cant find the post. however he also posted the content to twitter in a series of tweets
https://twitter.com/tedcruz/status/1003848737205243904
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He's worse than Hitlertm
Godwin's law, you lose.
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He seems to have edited his facebook as i cant find the post. however he also posted the content to twitter in a series of tweets
https://twitter.com/tedcruz/status/1003848737205243904
Thanks, DD.
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Godwin's law, you lose.
I was quoting the Bible.
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Agreed...same thing with the Eagles dis-invitation. Anything is better than the tightening noose held by Mueller.
Tightening noose? Mueller doesn’t even have a shoestring much less a rope from which to weave a noose. Anything of real consequence would have resulted in explosive leakage long ago...they got nothing. Except it and move on OR just late the gate flow through you until you are fully on the Dark side....and by dark side I mean specifically the Left.
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He rightly recognizes that the real concern should be the frothing at the mouth, partisan reactions to Trump's statement.
Trump keeps chumming the water with his stupid ass tweets, refusing to avoid the appearance of evil to drive the media and Leftist sharks into a feeding frenzy.
So I got no sympathy for Trump. He's the guy off the stern chucking fish heads into the drink.
I assert this is all engineered chaos for entertainment's sake anyway.
I'm more amused and interested in the Trumpsplaining justifications for his statement when had Obama said the same thing Trump tweeted, their heads would have exploded in outrage.
But it's okay when Trump does it, and they will explain to all of us simpletons why it is good and right that he make such asinine statements.
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Trump keeps chumming the water with his stupid ass tweets, refusing to avoid the appearance of evil to drive the media and Leftist sharks into a feeding frenzy.
@INVAR
And you keep taking the bait
:silly: :silly: :silly: :silly:
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@INVAR
And you keep taking the bait
:silly: :silly: :silly: :silly:
Well you have your entertainment reward then.
So when you get all pissy like you do when we Conservatives refuse to get all mad and outraged over all the "unfair" treatment your president is getting, you can piss up that rope.
Trump DESERVES everything he is receiving from the media and the Oligarchy.
He stokes it. He chummed for it. He deserves it.
Severed mannequin heads and all. I got no sympathy for him.
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Cruz ran the dirtiest campaign I ever saw. I lost a lot of respect for him once I realized what a dirty
lying phony he was.
??? Enlighten me.
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??? Enlighten me.
Just a guess, but it may be a reference to the Ben Carson thing.
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??? Enlighten me.
Oh, don't encourage him. He digs up these tired, old, discredited memes that show how evil Ted Cruz is, no matter how many times he's shown to be wrong.
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??? Enlighten me.
@libertybele here you're gonna need some hipwaders his "explanation"
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OMG!!! The MSM is reporting that Cruz was silent for ..... (drum roll).... a whopping 18 (yes 18) seconds before he replied.
https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2018/06/04/ted-cruz-18-seconds-speechless-trump-pardon-question-ebof.cnn (https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2018/06/04/ted-cruz-18-seconds-speechless-trump-pardon-question-ebof.cnn)
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OMG!!! The MSM is reporting that Cruz was silent for ..... (drum roll).... a whopping 18 (yes 18) seconds before he replied.
Shades of the 18 minute gap in the Nixon tapes.
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OMG!!! The MSM is reporting that Cruz was silent for ..... (drum roll).... a whopping 18 (yes 18) seconds before he replied.
https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2018/06/04/ted-cruz-18-seconds-speechless-trump-pardon-question-ebof.cnn (https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2018/06/04/ted-cruz-18-seconds-speechless-trump-pardon-question-ebof.cnn)
He was walking thru the hallways when they asked.
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He was walking thru the hallways when they asked.
Yes ... but 18 SECONDS?? How stupid to even report such crap!
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He was walking thru the hallways when they asked.
And, because he's a thoughtful type of person and doesn't just shoot from the hip.
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Yes ... but 18 SECONDS?? How stupid to even report such crap!
Shouldn't be surprised about this...you're talking about the same media that made an issue out of Marco Rubio pausing to take a drink of water before continuing some remarks he was making on TV.
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Shouldn't be surprised about this...you're talking about the same media that made an issue out of Marco Rubio pausing to take a drink of water before continuing some remarks he was making on TV.
Still not as funny as this…..
(https://s.yimg.com/lo/api/res/1.2/5EjTuZ59UNPSZ_ZMVdHwrQ--~B/YXBwaWQ9eWlzZWFyY2g7Zmk9Zml0O2dlPTAwNjYwMDtncz0wMEEzMDA7aD0zODE7dz02NjU-/https://s.yimg.com/uu/api/res/1.2/kcJlDkjuv6J643p0hiymSA--~B/aD0zODE7dz02NjU7c209MTthcHBpZD15dGFjaHlvbg--/http://media.zenfs.com/en/homerun/feed_manager_auto_publish_494/04daafbba6d983c133c1d917d42e32d0.cf.png)
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Still not as funny as this…..
(https://s.yimg.com/lo/api/res/1.2/5EjTuZ59UNPSZ_ZMVdHwrQ--~B/YXBwaWQ9eWlzZWFyY2g7Zmk9Zml0O2dlPTAwNjYwMDtncz0wMEEzMDA7aD0zODE7dz02NjU-/https://s.yimg.com/uu/api/res/1.2/kcJlDkjuv6J643p0hiymSA--~B/aD0zODE7dz02NjU7c209MTthcHBpZD15dGFjaHlvbg--/http://media.zenfs.com/en/homerun/feed_manager_auto_publish_494/04daafbba6d983c133c1d917d42e32d0.cf.png)
@edpc
well its not as good as making fun of beat up women but heh you cant do that all the time
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well its not as good as making fun of beat up women but heh you cant do that all the time.
Says Captain Decorum, joining the fun over in the Kate Spade suicide thread. You can always be relied upon to beclown yourself.
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@Mesaclone
cc @Maj. Bill Martin
@Weird Tolkienish Figure
@Cyber Liberty
@INVAR
@Smokin Joe
Let me say...thank goodness for Bill Martin. You are an island of sanity in a sea of dimwitted, emotionally driven, fact deprived absurdities in this thread.
The presidential power to pardon any American is absolute AS PER the Constitution itself. The President and his lawyer simply stated this fact.
Let me say at the outset that I respect Maj. Bill. He has frequently made good contributions on this forum, for which I am sincerely grateful. However, if you think you have the final in the present controversy word, you are dead wrong. Heck, everything in your argument is wrong, Mesaclone.
Although I confess that I have not yet been able to read the memo from the DOJ to President Nixon in 1974, suffice it to say that that DOJ position agrees with my own bottom-line position: a POTUS cannot pardon himself.
As I understand it, that DOJ memo was not a discussion of any applicable court precedent, but so what? The very fact that the 1974 DOJ memo maintains that the POTUS does not have the right to self-pardon destroys the snarky claims by some of TBR’s Trumpers that the POTUS obviously has the absolute right to pardon himself. So, if you want to scoff at me, please notice that I am scoffing right back at you. (Don’t be misled by the fact that I am so civil. [LOL])
By the same token, I am not impressed in the least by the claim that a number of legal scholars agree with you. It turns out that a fair number of “legal scholars†often prove to be spiritually dense when they try to interpret the Constitution. Even those who are usually correct in their reading of the Constitution can sometimes be horribly wrong in the heat of an argument.
***
Let me illustrate: I generally like Mark Levin (quite a lot, in fact), but I think his claim that our POTUS clearly has the right to self-pardon--is actually PREPOSTEROUS.
Although Mark seems to be following a normal, lawyerly way of parsing the language of the Constitution to “establish†his interpretation, that approach is sometimes miserably wrong. As I am fully prepared to prove, Levin’s too narrowly “logical†reading definitely does not fit what may be readily demonstrated as the Framer’s intent in their language. Levin has been too busy looking for a grammatical loophole that a POTUS can jump through if he ever winds up needing to escape JUSTICE (among other things, perhaps). That bizarre “loophole-seeking†approach, masquerading as fastidious exegesis, dishonors our Constitution and, by the same token, dishonors the Framers who wrote it.
In short, the standard, lawyerly approach that Levin is using is dangerous garbage. It’s a big part of how our nation has gotten so messed up over the decades (and now going on centuries). One of the very worst precedent-setting rulings by the SCOTUS was in the eminent domain case a few years ago. Our Framers would be appalled to see how the doctrine of eminent domain has gotten twisted against private property rights. (Oh, great. Now, the correct doctrine of eminent domain, the one that genuinely respects private property, has been forever overturned by an asinine SCOTUS precedent!)
My point here is that the anti-Originalist mindset of many if not most lawyers (including many if not most judges, I’m afraid) has been wickedly eroding our Constitution by precisely the sort of approach that Levin is taking. Levin is a pretty good lawyer, but he has defaulted to pretty bad lawyering in the present case
.
Why does this sometimes happen even to a great guy like Levin? It’s partly because Mark is trying too hard to support Trump and Trump’s legal team. As a related problem, it turns out that people (which noun generally includes lawyers [ha!]) ultimately believe only what they want to believe—even if what they want to believe is nonsense.
It goes almost without saying that lawyers will often “find†arguments that appear (to them, at least) to support their hopeful presuppositions for their clients—even when the arguments that they “find†are completely specious. Levin has unfortunately been so determined to support the badly persecuted Trump team in the matter of the Mueller witch hunt that he has not noticed the sundry fatal flaws in his argument.
Mark is likely impressed with the simplicity of his argument; sadly, he should have noticed that his argument is too simplistic to be correct. To make matters worse, Mark exacerbates his own confusion by presenting his specious argument adamantly—thereby insinuating, at the very least, that if you don’t agree with his wonderfully simple argument, then you are a stubborn NeverTrumper or a Constitution-despising dunce or, more likely, both. (I’m afraid that Mark is so pumped up that he has lost the ability to think clearly, to be objective.)
By the way, a great many lawyers (possibly including Levin?) are far too willing to intimidate people into agreeing with them—e.g., pressing them very hard to marvel at the simplicity of the lawyer’s impressively blunt, impressively dogmatic argument rather than recoiling at it as too simplistic (and too hot-headed?) to be trusted.
This sort of manipulative drama is one reason why courtrooms are often circuses. The judicial theory of courtroom trials holds that the extremely adversarial nature of a trial is the best way of guaranteeing that the Truth will come out; however, some of the lawyers I have known have lamented that the opposite result is very often the case. In the present situation, I’m concerned that the clamor on the present TBR thread—mainly a clash between Trumpers versus NeverTrumpers—will leave many of the Constitutional amateurs on TBR thinking Levin is surely correct--whereas he is most certainly wrong.
Again, I am not impressed that the Great One (Levin, not Trump!) has declared that the President’s right to self-pardon is essentially explicit in the Constitution. Well, as you know, Levin's argument is from the Constitution's Pardon Clause, which says that the POTUS can pardon any person for a crime--and since the POTUS is a person, that "surely" allows the POTUS to pardon himself. But with all due respect to Levin—and that’s considerable respect, indeed—his reasoning is just snaky, legalistic nonsense. I am guessing that it’s the single worst blunder he has ever made in Constitutional interpretation. Perhaps I am being too charitable, but I frankly cannot imagine Levin making a worse mistake in handling the Constitution.
(Constitutional issues aside, by the way, Mark’s mistake in the present matter is not the first really bad mistake Mark has made in recent years. I am now referring to the fact that Mark has repeatedly declared that Obama was born in Hawaii—as though this were a settled matter. [It suited Mark to refuse even to consider the mountain of evidence to the contrary—preferring rather to disparage Birthers, as I recall.] When Trump finally prosecutes Obama for the birthplace fraud, as I am convinced that Trump will, Levin is going to be badly embarrassed. [So will our esteemed conservative pundit Rush Limbaugh, who is also wrong about the Constitutionality of self-pardoning by a POTUS. The moral of the larger story that I am recounting is, of course, that some of our best guys make shockingly bad mistakes—often involving herd stupidity, I think.])
Anyway, you need to re-read Oceander’s Post #52 and my own Post # 55. These posts, which you did not really address, actually crush Levin’s claim, my TBR friend.
Oceander's reductio ad absurdum argument, cited above, is hereby offered just for starters in the debate. Hilariously, it gets even worse for you when we delve further. You will discover that the already crushed position of Trump's legal team gets ground to powder.
***
The good news for Trump in all of this is that the correct position—i.e., the position that the POTUS cannot pardon himself—surprisingly but rather massively buttresses the important claim that Mueller cannot indict him. Period. (As I will demonstrate in a later post or two, that very important position becomes a slam dunk as soon as you quit making the distracting and utterly repugnant claim that a POTUS is ultimately above the law. [For now, read my Post #77 and Post #82 to see why I say that the legal theory advanced by Trump’s lawyers is both distracting and repugnant.])
In my forthcoming posts, I will prove beyond any doubt whatsoever that a sitting POTUS cannot be indicted and simultaneously prove that a sitting POTUS cannot pardon himself for anything whatsoever. These two matters are Constitutionally interlocking in ways that the loudest legal scholars appearing on camera and on the radio haven’t even noticed.
(Here’s my concluding teaser: Trump’s lawyers evidently sensed a connection of some kind between these two matters but didn’t elucidate the connection correctly—because they stupidly negated one of the two premises. [Oooops.])
See you around soon, my TBR friend.
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Excellent post, @the_doc.
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Good discussion on the pardon issue, but I'm actually with @the_doc on this.
The carving out of impeachment from the pardon power is sort of a red herring. I think a lot of people hear "impeachment", think "the President", and assume that the carving out of impeachment from the pardon power refers to the President. And therefore, implies that the rest of the pardon power must apply to him personally as well. But impeachment is not limited to the President. According to the Constitution, Impeachment applies to the President, Vice-President, and "other Civil Officers of the United States", including judges. So, I think the carving out of impeachment was meant to prevent the President from trying to stop the removal of those other government officials by Congress. He might pardon them for their crimes, but he can't prevent Congress from removing them.
In other words, I don't think the exclusion of impeachment from the pardon power implies anything about the President's power to pardon himself. I think that is a sui generis question, in that we have to ask not "does the pardon power apply to the President himself", but rather, "what was the common law history/background of the pardon power, such that we can try to understand what that power meant to the Framers when they drafted the Constitution?"
I don't think there is anything in English history, common-law or otherwise, implying that the King (who held the pardon power) could never be held accountable if he was removed from power. English history is full of monarchs who were subsequently punished or imprisoned after being given the boot. And I just find it extremely hard to fathom that the Framers would have deliberately decided to make the President immune from prosecution for any criminal act, no matter how vile, that he committed while in office. It seems extreme, nonsensical, and not at all in keeping with the other ideals in our Constitution.
@Mesaclone - Zod help me, but I'm actually about to side with @INVAR....
It legalizes absolutely nothing. And this is not about extortion, or murder, or kidnapping or any non-political criminal action....what you do NOT do is attempt to prosecute prior Presidential administrations and/or defeated Presidential campaigns. Their actions are chastized by the voters, if you criminalize political activity you invite instability and 3rd world style governance by retribution. What you DO, is to investigate and fully expose actions to the public scrutiny...from there, it is the job of voters to eliminate corruption and lawlessness. If they chose not to do so, than we will have corruption...and there is no criminalization of political activity that could ever stop it. The integrity of government rests in the ethical hands of those who vote.
You're wrong. :tongue2:
Look, your own argument is that there is no language in the Constitution limiting the President's pardon power, and therefore it applies just as much to himself as to everyone else. Right?
If that is the case, then @INVAR is at least partially right. Even though this particular kerfluffle with Trump pertains to "crimes" that are just basically just political, your argument is that the President's pardon power is not limited. Therefore, a President could commit a common crime in the federal district, or on federal property -- not within the jurisdiction of any state -- and pardon himself. That would include murder under 18 U.S. Code § 1111, or rape 18 U.S. Code § 2241. You might say "that's not what this is about", but the power for which you are arguing absolutely does make it about those things as well. Unless you're arguing that the Constitution permits the President to pardon himself for "political" crimes, but not common ones, in which case the lack of such a distinction in the text is jarring.
Republican Rome fell, in part, due to neverending legal prosecutions of men who had served in Executive positions...Governorships and in the Curule chair. Caesar crossed the Rubicon because the Senate would not grant him immunity from the lawsuits and prosecutions of his Senatorial opponents...he repeatedly offered to lay down arms and surrender power if the Senate was willing to forego such actions. This is relevant, because our current trend in criminalizing political opponents is a big step down that road to true dictatorship...this is deeply relevant in today's context. For example, while I deeply dislike Hillary and believe Obama violated the law in using the FBI/CIA as a political weapon against the opposing party...it is important that we NEVER attempt to prosecute, much less convict, either of them. Their actions should be investigated and fully exposed, and a full pardon then immediately issued...because down the road of prosecuting defeated political opponents and/or criminalizing the political acts of sitting Presidents...lies the collapse of our Republic.
The law must never be used to punish political enemies...even when they are genuinely guilty of political illegalities (capital crimes like murder and such do not fall into this category of course). Our political battles MUST be restricted to the arena of electoral politics...if we fail in this as a nation, we will not long maintain our Republic, much as the Romans lost theirs.
That's a very good, well-stated justification for why a new President should pardon his predecessor, and not criminally prosecute for the official acts the predecessor may have committed in officer. I don't think it's a sufficient justification to give a President the power to pardon himself for common crimes, like murder, rape, robbery, or assault.
I think Federalist No. 74 makes this clear. In his discussion of the pardon power, Hamilton justifies it by saying that in some cases, the criminal law is harsh, that mercy is appropriate, and that it is best for one man to have the power to grant that mercy. Here is the operative language:
He is also to be authorized to grant "reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, EXCEPT IN CASES OF IMPEACHMENT.'' Humanity and good policy conspire to dictate, that the benign prerogative of pardoning should be as little as possible fettered or embarrassed. The criminal code of every country partakes so much of necessary severity, that without an easy access to exceptions in favor of unfortunate guilt, justice would wear a countenance too sanguinary and cruel. As the sense of responsibility is always strongest, in proportion as it is undivided, it may be inferred that a single man would be most ready to attend to the force of those motives which might plead for a mitigation of the rigor of the law, and least apt to yield to considerations which were calculated to shelter a fit object of its vengeance. The reflection that the fate of a fellow-creature depended on his sole fiat, would naturally inspire scrupulousness and caution; the dread of being accused of weakness or connivance, would beget equal circumspection, though of a different kind. On the other hand, as men generally derive confidence from their numbers, they might often encourage each other in an act of obduracy, and might be less sensible to the apprehension of suspicion or censure for an injudicious or affected clemency. On these accounts, one man appears to be a more eligible dispenser of the mercy of government, than a body of men.
And that's basically it. It is expressly intended to be an act of mercy for a fellow creature. But pardoning yourself has absolutely nothing to do with mercy. Nor is the President pardoning himself even an act towards a "fellow creature". It's an act that benefits himself only.
There is no hint, at all, in Federalist No. 74 that the pardon power was meant to prevent the sins of Ancient Rome that you described, and it strikes me as odd that something as significant as a President being able to pardon himself didn't even get the slightest mention in the Federalist Paper that defended the pardon power. If they actually intended for him to pardon himself, you'd think they'd have mentioned at least some of the argument you did, rather than limiting themselves only towards the concept of exercising mercy towards other people.
So like I said, I'm with @the_doc on this one. I think I see where he is going with the argument that the self-pardon power is inconsistent with the idea that a sitting president cannot be indicted, and I look forward to reading that. But a good discussion anyway, and absolutely nothing wrong with Trump advancing that legal argument as a way to pressure Mueller. Though politically, it's a stinker.
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Good discussion on the pardon issue, but I'm actually with @the_doc on this.
The carving out of impeachment from the pardon power is sort of a red herring. I think a lot of people hear "impeachment", think "the President", and assume that the carving out of impeachment from the pardon power refers to the President. And therefore, implies that the rest of the pardon power must apply to him personally as well. But impeachment is not limited to the President. According to the Constitution, Impeachment applies to the President, Vice-President, and "other Civil Officers of the United States", including judges. So, I think the carving out of impeachment was meant to prevent the President from trying to stop the removal of those other government officials by Congress. He might pardon them for their crimes, but he can't prevent Congress from removing them.
In other words, I don't think the exclusion of impeachment from the pardon power implies anything about the President's power to pardon himself. I think that is a sui generis question, in that we have to ask not "does the pardon power apply to the President himself", but rather, "what was the common law history/background of the pardon power, such that we can try to understand what that power meant to the Framers when they drafted the Constitution?"
I don't think there is anything in English history, common-law or otherwise, implying that the King (who held the pardon power) could never be held accountable if he was removed from power. English history is full of monarchs who were subsequently punished or imprisoned after being given the boot. And I just find it extremely hard to fathom that the Framers would have deliberately decided to make the President immune from prosecution for any criminal act, no matter how vile, that he committed while in office. It seems extreme, nonsensical, and not at all in keeping with the other ideals in our Constitution.
I agree. The President can pardon people for federal crimes. He/she cannot stop or pardon impeachment.
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Trump: 'I have the absolute right to pardon myself'
So much for avoiding the appearance of evil. As I said before, with statements like these, Trump is handing his Democrat enemies the rope they are going to politically hang him with.
Especially in an institution where 'the seriousness of the charge' is all that matters to crucify someone in the court of public opinion.
But hey - if sowing absolute chaos is the intention, then Trump succeeds in doing just that.
And if he actually does try to 'pardon himself', he will have destroyed his own presidency and committed suicide by Congress - or - he is fashioning himself into a law unto himself.
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Good discussion on the pardon issue, but I'm actually with @the_doc on this.
The carving out of impeachment from the pardon power is sort of a red herring. I think a lot of people hear "impeachment", think "the President", and assume that the carving out of impeachment from the pardon power refers to the President. And therefore, implies that the rest of the pardon power must apply to him personally as well. But impeachment is not limited to the President. According to the Constitution, Impeachment applies to the President, Vice-President, and "other Civil Officers of the United States", including judges. So, I think the carving out of impeachment was meant to prevent the President from trying to stop the removal of those other government officials by Congress. He might pardon them for their crimes, but he can't prevent Congress from removing them.
In other words, I don't think the exclusion of impeachment from the pardon power implies anything about the President's power to pardon himself. I think that is a sui generis question, in that we have to ask not "does the pardon power apply to the President himself", but rather, "what was the common law history/background of the pardon power, such that we can try to understand what that power meant to the Framers when they drafted the Constitution?"
I don't think there is anything in English history, common-law or otherwise, implying that the King (who held the pardon power) could never be held accountable if he was removed from power. English history is full of monarchs who were subsequently punished or imprisoned after being given the boot. And I just find it extremely hard to fathom that the Framers would have deliberately decided to make the President immune from prosecution for any criminal act, no matter how vile, that he committed while in office. It seems extreme, nonsensical, and not at all in keeping with the other ideals in our Constitution.
@Mesaclone - Zod help me, but I'm actually about to side with @INVAR....
You're wrong. :tongue2:
Look, your own argument is that there is no language in the Constitution limiting the President's pardon power, and therefore it applies just as much to himself as to everyone else. Right?
If that is the case, then @INVAR is at least partially right. Even though this particular kerfluffle with Trump pertains to "crimes" that are just basically just political, your argument is that the President's pardon power is not limited. Therefore, a President could commit a common crime in the federal district, or on federal property -- not within the jurisdiction of any state -- and pardon himself. That would include murder under 18 U.S. Code § 1111, or rape 18 U.S. Code § 2241. You might say "that's not what this is about", but the power for which you are arguing absolutely does make it about those things as well. Unless you're arguing that the Constitution permits the President to pardon himself for "political" crimes, but not common ones, in which case the lack of such a distinction in the text is jarring.
That's a very good, well-stated justification for why a new President should pardon his predecessor, and not criminally prosecute for the official acts the predecessor may have committed in officer. I don't think it's a sufficient justification to give a President the power to pardon himself for common crimes, like murder, rape, robbery, or assault.
I think Federalist No. 74 makes this clear. In his discussion of the pardon power, Hamilton justifies it by saying that in some cases, the criminal law is harsh, that mercy is appropriate, and that it is best for one man to have the power to grant that mercy. Here is the operative language:
He is also to be authorized to grant "reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, EXCEPT IN CASES OF IMPEACHMENT.'' Humanity and good policy conspire to dictate, that the benign prerogative of pardoning should be as little as possible fettered or embarrassed. The criminal code of every country partakes so much of necessary severity, that without an easy access to exceptions in favor of unfortunate guilt, justice would wear a countenance too sanguinary and cruel. As the sense of responsibility is always strongest, in proportion as it is undivided, it may be inferred that a single man would be most ready to attend to the force of those motives which might plead for a mitigation of the rigor of the law, and least apt to yield to considerations which were calculated to shelter a fit object of its vengeance. The reflection that the fate of a fellow-creature depended on his sole fiat, would naturally inspire scrupulousness and caution; the dread of being accused of weakness or connivance, would beget equal circumspection, though of a different kind. On the other hand, as men generally derive confidence from their numbers, they might often encourage each other in an act of obduracy, and might be less sensible to the apprehension of suspicion or censure for an injudicious or affected clemency. On these accounts, one man appears to be a more eligible dispenser of the mercy of government, than a body of men.
And that's basically it. It is expressly intended to be an act of mercy for a fellow creature. But pardoning yourself has absolutely nothing to do with mercy. Nor is the President pardoning himself even an act towards a "fellow creature". It's an act that benefits himself only.
There is no hint, at all, in Federalist No. 74 that the pardon power was meant to prevent the sins of Ancient Rome that you described, and it strikes me as odd that something as significant as a President being able to pardon himself didn't even get the slightest mention in the Federalist Paper that defended the pardon power. If they actually intended for him to pardon himself, you'd think they'd have mentioned at least some of the argument you did, rather than limiting themselves only towards the concept of exercising mercy towards other people.
So like I said, I'm with @the_doc on this one. I think I see where he is going with the argument that the self-pardon power is inconsistent with the idea that a sitting president cannot be indicted, and I look forward to reading that. But a good discussion anyway, and absolutely nothing wrong with Trump advancing that legal argument as a way to pressure Mueller. Though politically, it's a stinker.
Impressive arguments and I particularly find your citation of Hamilton’s argument to be persuasive. Let me say then that you’ve brought me around to a new position on this, and I now agree with your view that the pardon power, while absolute in its application to others, is not self applicable to the President himself. While it is a close call, I concur with you and Hamilton that the purpose of the pardon power is to bestow mercy and/or mitigation of overly harsh justice...and that, while this power quite rightly rests in the singular hands of the Executive, it’s purpose is universal ONLY in its projection of those qualities and not in their self directed potentialities.
In short, doc and Bill are correct and my view was wrong.
Frankly, I find few things more rewarding than an argument so well asserted that it forces me to accept a new and more defensible perspective. Thanks to both of you gentleman for a great discussion.
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I want to thank all of you guys for a well-thought out discussion containing no hate, no vulgarity and no tawdry pictures.
Way to go !
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I want to thank all of you guys for a well-thought out discussion containing no hate, no vulgarity and no tawdry pictures.
Way to go !
Ditto what Emjay said!
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@Mesaclone
@Maj. Bill Martin
@Oceander
@Weird Tolkienish Figure
@Emjay
@Sanguine
Impressive arguments and I particularly find your citation of Hamilton’s argument to be persuasive. Let me say then that you’ve brought me around to a new position on this, and I now agree with your view that the pardon power, while absolute in its application to others, is not self applicable to the President himself. While it is a close call, I concur with you and Hamilton that the purpose of the pardon power is to bestow mercy and/or mitigation of overly harsh justice...and that, while this power quite rightly rests in the singular hands of the Executive, it’s purpose is universal ONLY in its projection of those qualities and not in their self directed potentialities.
In short, doc and Bill are correct and my view was wrong.
Frankly, I find few things more rewarding than an argument so well asserted that it forces me to accept a new and more defensible perspective. Thanks to both of you gentleman for a great discussion.
Welcome to my own TBR BFF list!
You are actually one of the better posters here, in my opinion. You slogged through some heavy stuff in a discussion that a lot of other folks can't handle very well.
(I apologize if my polemical retorts were quite a bit crustier than Maj. Bill Martin's. He is probably the better gentleman most of the time [LOL again.] I am no lawyer--and I wouldn't care to take up that career--but I do recognize that there are some really good ones in America, even on our little forum.)
I will walk us all through my promised proof of my two-pronged thesis as soon as I get a chance. I think you will find it pretty interesting as I trace out our Framers' thinking in a bit more detail. Maj. Bill has already brought out some of this stuff from Federalist Paper #74, but there is even more to consider apart from Hamilton's words.
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I'm all about the Federalist papers, as they are gift that never stops informing my/our understanding of the Constitution...as a self professed Originalist, I take every word from these works as relevant. I've read them all, but admit its been many years and my familiarity is lacking on a number of topics...so I look forward to your treatise on the subject.
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I'm all about the Federalist papers, as they are gift that never stops informing my/our understanding of the Constitution...as a self professed Originalist, I take every word from these works as relevant. I've read them all, but admit its been many years and my familiarity is lacking on a number of topics...so I look forward to your treatise on the subject.
Yes, I look forward to it too, @the_doc.
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@Mesaclone
@Maj. Bill Martin
@Oceander
@Weird Tolkienish Figure
@Emjay
@Sanguine
Welcome to my own TBR BFF list!
You are actually one of the better posters here, in my opinion. You slogged through some heavy stuff in a discussion that a lot of other folks can't handle very well.
(I apologize if my polemical retorts were quite a bit crustier than Maj. Bill Martin's. He is probably the better gentleman most of the time [LOL again.] I am no lawyer--and I wouldn't care to take up that career--but I do recognize that there are some really good ones in America, even on our little forum.)
I will walk us all through my promised proof of my two-pronged thesis as soon as I get a chance. I think you will find it pretty interesting as I trace out our Framers' thinking in a bit more detail. Maj. Bill has already brought out some of this stuff from Federalist Paper #74, but there is even more to consider apart from Hamilton's words.
After the primaries, I was so pissed at the way Trump conducted himself that I was leaning heavily towards abstaining in the general election, and I said that here.
@Mesaclone didn't hector, berate, or get nasty in any way. He simply presented arguments, then backed off so that I'd consider them without pressure. Perhaps I'd have ended up voting for Trump anyway, but the way Mesaclone presented his case to me directly certainly did not hurt.
Good discussion, guys.
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We have quite a few Trumpers here that make valid, reasoned arguments without the vitriol and I am grateful for each of their contributions to TBR.
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After the primaries, I was so pissed at the way Trump conducted himself that I was leaning heavily towards abstaining in the general election, and I said that here.
@Mesaclone didn't hector, berate, or get nasty in any way. He simply presented arguments, then backed off so that I'd consider them without pressure. Perhaps I'd have ended up voting for Trump anyway, but the way Mesaclone presented his case to me directly certainly did not hurt.
Good discussion, guys.
You give me way too much credit but thank you for saying it. I think once emotions cool after a primary...even an over the top and harsh one...we all find the space to reach a conclusion that most advances the things we believe in most.
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@pookie18 brought me here years ago but it was the intelligent, insightful, snarky Briefers that entombed me.
It lives up to the Masthead 'A Conservative Hub'.
:beer:
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@Mesaclone
@Maj. Bill Martin
@Oceander
@Weird Tolkienish Figure
@Emjay
@Sanguine
Yes, I look forward to it too, @the_doc.
As promised earlier, I will lay out in the following two or three posts my argument that a POTUS can never pardon himself for anything whatsoever and also that a sitting President can never be indicted in a criminal proceeding. (Both of these tenets are currently a matter of the policy of the U.S. DOJ, by the way, although the separate policies involving each of these were documented on separate occasions.)
My humble analysis is below.
***
FIRST, I INTEND TO TACKLE THE THEORY OF SELF-PARDONING:
Natural law argument against self-pardoning: A person accused of a crime can never serve as his own judge.
This should be regarded as axiomatic in law, since justice would ordinarily if not always be thwarted if the accused person in a given case and the judge in that case are the same person: an accused person could simply void even pretty serious charges. The very idea of self-pardon is therefore completely perverse.
Perhaps someone might point out that if a sitting POTUS were to be indicted, then a self-pardon at that point would still leave him exposed to impeachment. (Remember: The Constitution’s Impeachment Clause explicitly declares that Presidential pardons cannot be used to vacate impeachments.) But a self-pardon under a criminal indictment would forever block the criminal penalties, including a prison sentence or perhaps even a death penalty. Getting subsequently impeached by the House and then removed from office by the Senate would accomplish nothing in the way of retributive justice.
(See Oceander’s post # 52.)
This ugly breach of justice, endorsed by the Trump team, is a legal absurdity in any nation that cares about real justice. In other words, if we choose to ignore the legal axiom that a person accused of a crime can never serve as his own judge, then we immediately run into a rigorous and crushing reductio ad absurdum argument affirming the axiom, i.e., reaffirming what is already patently obvious.
When the Mueller team read the stated position of Trump’s lawyers, the Mueller lawyers immediately realized that Trump’s claim of a “right to self-pardon†is completely indefensible and that it would be unacceptable to the public as a whole—including many Trump supporters (e.g., more than a few on TBR). This is why the Mueller team leaked the Trump team’s legal claim to the press. Mueller obviously knew that the revelation would inflame the public against a POTUS who happens to be widely regarded as an extreme narcissist and who had even joked in the 2016 campaign that he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and he would still be popular. (The inflammatory situation was made somewhat worse, I believe, when Giuliani presented a related legal theory involving, of all things, a hypothetical scenario of Trump shooting James Comey.)
As much as we might dislike James Acosta, his insinuation that our POTUS thinks that he is above the law has frightfully real merit.
Bottom-line point: When Senator Schumer got word that Trump was asserting a theory of a “self-pardon defense,†he immediately presented the axiom that a person accused of a crime can never serve as his own judge. This is not a lame argument—no matter how much we might distrust Schumer and no matter what Mark Levin insinuates by his own obfuscating word games. Schumer’s argument is completely cogent. It is the very argument presented succinctly in the DOJ memo to President Nixon in 1974.
Jonathan Turley, a reportedly liberal but respected Constitutional scholar, has said that the Trump team does not stand a chance in court with their self-pardon argument. I submit that Turley is obviously correct. I submit that President Trump needs to tweet out a statement that he has fired the lawyer(s) who talked him into a legalistic position that he is no longer willing to assert. (I hope the firings do not include Giuliani, but if they do, then he doesn’t clearly belong on the Trump defense team anyway. As you will see in my next post, the “self-pardon defense†is a disaster in every way. It would not merely fail, but would backfire against President Trump.)
***
I trust that everyone on TBR can see that none of this analysis is really difficult, even if it unsettling for some Trumpers and some fans of Mark Levin to realize that the legal theory of Trump’s legal team is dangerously wrong. Trump and his lawyers are playing a nasty little word game that I would call “Looking for Loopholes.â€
This approach is how we have gotten some really bad SCOTUS decisions—such as the infamous Eminent Domain case a few years ago. Well, there are legitimate loopholes that may be discovered in many legal documents, but they are never legitimate if they are demonstrably at odds with the Framers’ original intent. Originalism is always necessary for proper Constitutional interpretation. Anti-Originalists lawyers are completely willing to shred the Constitution in order to win a case. Well, as far as I am concerned, they can pat themselves on the back and go straight to hell.
Having shown that the self-pardon defense would have been regarded as abhorrent to the Framers, I will use my next post to show how the very word “pardon†destroys Trump’s argument. And you will see that this approach is not just a silly lawyer’s word game. It goes to the true meaning of the often very strange thing that is language. My study of the meaning of “pardon†is yet another way of understanding the Framers’ intent in the Pardon Clause.
More to come as soon as I have a little more time.
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It is important to consider the systemic balances that our Founding Fathers instilled into the very foundation of our government at all levels. For the President, one of his greatest protections of office is that he cannot be charged with a crime. That alone should lay to rest any inkling that a President can pardon himself. If he cannot be charged, then there is nothing to pardon.
For the President to be charged, it would require a majority of the House and two-thirds of the Senate to first remove him/her from office, which is an extremely high hurdle. If our Founding Fathers were to endow our President with the power to self-pardon, then such a hurdle would be meaningless.
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We must be careful here to not conflate two issues...the criminality of a presidential action must be viewed entirely apart from the prospect of impeachment, which is a political act. No one here has argued that a pardon impedes an impeachment process. More importantly, while I agree a President cannot pardon himself from a criminal prosecution, it is imperative that his successor do so with the exception of a crime of violence (murder, assault, rape, etcetera). The Constitution is designed to provide "criminal" immunity to the Chief Executive, while allowing for the removal of a "criminal or unjust" leader through a structured political process...this is done with good reason, and taken directly from the lessons of the Roman Republic and its ignominious end which arose, in great part, from the criminalization of Consular actions.
Jim Acosta's assertion that the president considers himself above the law is not frightening at all...in a real sense the President IS above the law. He is NOT, however, above removal through the Constitution's designed political mechansims. So, rather than frightening, it should be comforting that the President is above the law IN THE SENSE that he cannot be prosecuted criminally while in office...were he not so, each Executive would face a continuous threat of endless prosecution from any Judiciary officers who opposed him, were unethical, or who had no respect for the balance of powers set forth in our founding document. So, as usual, Jim Acosta is flat out wrong.
Further, while the Trump legal team's position may be in error it certainly does not reflect a "breach of justice" as you state, rather, it is a position that fails to account for...as you say...natural law, under which no man may serve as his own judge under the law.
All of this said, Trump's lawyers are not playing a "nasty little game", what they are actually doing is playing politics...OK, I guess that is a nasty game but both sides play it...Schumer, the DNC and their ilk being the prime example of "nasty" little political players. I'd argue that the legal team knows Trump will never issue a self pardon...on the contrary, it appears he has no reason to do so as there is simply no evidence he's committed any crime...but making they argument that he CAN do so is simply posturing to send the signal that they will not be railroaded by the grotesquely biased Mueller team nor will they go quietly into the goodnight that the Left so desperately is seeking to manufacture from the ether.
Put simply, its become crystal clear that the President has done nothing worthy of impeachment or criminal prosecution...and his team is fighting back in a political way against what is little more than a political and unethical hit job from the Left. I may not approve of Rudy's tactics, but they are understandable in light of the lynch mob approach they face from the Dems.
@Maj. Bill Martin
@Oceander
@Weird Tolkienish Figure
@Emjay
@Sanguine
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Amen to what you said, @Mesaclone
I just saw a poster on the Manafort thread claim that Trump is guilty of crimes, which is ridiculous. Trump has so many mortal enemies that if he so much as jay-walked we would know about it.
All he is guilty of is being a person they cannot stand.
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Amen to what you said, @Mesaclone
I just saw a poster on the Manafort thread claim that Trump is guilty of crimes, which is ridiculous. Trump has so many mortal enemies that if he so much as jay-walked we would know about it.
All he is guilty of is being a person they cannot stand.
And cannibalism.
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And cannibalism.
Well...its true that there's more evidence he's a cannibal, than there is for collusion. So you've got a point.
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We must be careful here to not conflate two issues...the criminality of a presidential action must be viewed entirely apart from the prospect of impeachment, which is a political act. No one here has argued that a pardon impedes an impeachment process. More importantly, while I agree a President cannot pardon himself from a criminal prosecution, it is imperative that his successor do so with the exception of a crime of violence (murder, assault, rape, etcetera). The Constitution is designed to provide "criminal" immunity to the Chief Executive, while allowing for the removal of a "criminal or unjust" leader through a structured political process...this is done with good reason, and taken directly from the lessons of the Roman Republic and its ignominious end which arose, in great part, from the criminalization of Consular actions.
Jim Acosta's assertion that the president considers himself above the law is not frightening at all...in a real sense the President IS above the law. He is NOT, however, above removal through the Constitution's designed political mechansims. So, rather than frightening, it should be comforting that the President is above the law IN THE SENSE that he cannot be prosecuted criminally while in office...were he not so, each Executive would face a continuous threat of endless prosecution from any Judiciary officers who opposed him, were unethical, or who had no respect for the balance of powers set forth in our founding document. So, as usual, Jim Acosta is flat out wrong.
Further, while the Trump legal team's position may be in error it certainly does not reflect a "breach of justice" as you state, rather, it is a position that fails to account for...as you say...natural law, under which no man may serve as his own judge under the law.
All of this said, Trump's lawyers are not playing a "nasty little game", what they are actually doing is playing politics...OK, I guess that is a nasty game but both sides play it...Schumer, the DNC and their ilk being the prime example of "nasty" little political players. I'd argue that the legal team knows Trump will never issue a self pardon...on the contrary, it appears he has no reason to do so as there is simply no evidence he's committed any crime...but making they argument that he CAN do so is simply posturing to send the signal that they will not be railroaded by the grotesquely biased Mueller team nor will they go quietly into the goodnight that the Left so desperately is seeking to manufacture from the ether.
Put simply, its become crystal clear that the President has done nothing worthy of impeachment or criminal prosecution...and his team is fighting back in a political way against what is little more than a political and unethical hit job from the Left. I may not approve of Rudy's tactics, but they are understandable in light of the lynch mob approach they face from the Dems.
@Maj. Bill Martin
@Oceander
@Weird Tolkienish Figure
@Emjay
@Sanguine
Agree completely -- well said.
While "me-tooism" isn't an excuse for truly bad conduct, it is a very valid excuse in politics. Fair politics in a representative democracy requires as level a playing field as possible. If not, then the side whose sins get overlooked -- and the views/values advanced by that side -- will be much more likely to win. So given that democrats are using unethical methods to try to kneecap a duly-elected President, I have zero qualms about his side making sleazy legal arguments to try to defeat those efforts.
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Agree completely -- well said.
While "me-tooism" isn't an excuse for truly bad conduct, it is a very valid excuse in politics. Fair politics in a representative democracy requires as level a playing field as possible. If not, then the side whose sins get overlooked -- and the views/values advanced by that side -- will be much more likely to win. So given that democrats are using unethical methods to try to kneecap a duly-elected President, I have zero qualms about his side making sleazy legal arguments to try to defeat those efforts.
This is what makes Trump so unique. I don't recall any other Pub POTUS who gives it back even better than the lowlifes who sling the mud in the first place. Regan responded with humor, but I don't recall him attaching denigrating nicknames to his detractors. We finally have someone whose defense is to be on the offense and it is refreshing. It's nice having someone outside the faculty lounge as POTUS.
I believe the more insane the leftists become in attacking Trump, his wife, and his children the more his support will grow. I'm sure the leftists will become worse just because Trump has the temerity to fight back.
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We must be careful here to not conflate two issues...the criminality of a presidential action must be viewed entirely apart from the prospect of impeachment, which is a political act. No one here has argued that a pardon impedes an impeachment process. More importantly, while I agree a President cannot pardon himself from a criminal prosecution, it is imperative that his successor do so with the exception of a crime of violence (murder, assault, rape, etcetera). The Constitution is designed to provide "criminal" immunity to the Chief Executive, while allowing for the removal of a "criminal or unjust" leader through a structured political process...this is done with good reason, and taken directly from the lessons of the Roman Republic and its ignominious end which arose, in great part, from the criminalization of Consular actions.
I won't quibble with you about the above paragraph.
Jim Acosta's assertion that the president considers himself above the law is not frightening at all...in a real sense the President IS above the law. He is NOT, however, above removal through the Constitution's designed political mechansims. So, rather than frightening, it should be comforting that the President is above the law IN THE SENSE that he cannot be prosecuted criminally while in office...were he not so, each Executive would face a continuous threat of endless prosecution from any Judiciary officers who opposed him, were unethical, or who had no respect for the balance of powers set forth in our founding document. So, as usual, Jim Acosta is flat out wrong.
I will respectfully quibble with that second paragraph. (See below.)
I specifically question your statement that there is at least “a sense†in which the President is above the law. I think that a better way to describe the President’s situation is to say nothing more than the fact that the prosecution of a sitting President has to follow a special protocol, one surely intended for the peace and safety of the United States—and certainly not intending to proscribe criminal justice for a sitting POTUS (which proscription would amount to a breach of justice).
As you realize, the Constitution merely adds an extra (first) step in meting out justice to a rogue POTUS. That extra step definitely is a matter of law--the Law that is the Constitution itself. Trump is completely under that law.
Someone might say Well, although our POTUS is certainly and completely under the Law that is the Constitution, a sitting POTUS is not under the criminal law that applies to everyone else—inasmuch as a sitting POTUS cannot be criminally prosecuted. In that narrow but real sense, he is positioned above the criminal laws that apply to everyone else.
Okay--but not okay. The important fact is that a POTUS can be ultimately prosecuted for a crime—as anyone else could be prosecuted. As practically everyone on this thread has already said, the Constitution necessarily protects the nation by protecting the noble Office of POTUS against criminal prosecution, not protecting the person in that Office. To appreciate the distinction I am making, I would point out the impeachment protocol specified in the Constitution is a pretty quick procedural step that can get a POTUS thrown out of his Office and shortly thereafter thrown into jail. So, I would say that the “narrow but real sense“ in which the person of the President is above “criminal law†is a spurious “sense†after all.
I realize that I am discussing semantics, but semantics are important. For example, if Trump were to tweet out a statement that there is a “narrow but real sense†in which a POTUS is above the law, he would get burned at the stake for his semantics—fanning the flames of the furor over his dopey defense of self-pardoning. It’s safer for him to avoid any proclamation that he is above the law in any sense whatsoever.
The safest course of all would be for Trump to recant his dopey self-pardon defense and then shut up.
***
President Trump has another problem worth discussing along these lines. In view of the confusion inherent in this very odd topic, I think we ought to pose (privately) the following questions: 1) Does President Trump believe that he is under the law flowing down from the Constitution? I would certainly hope so. 2) Would he even say that he is under that law? I assume that he would always say that he is.
So far, so good.
Unfortunately, Trump has unwittingly contradicted any professed submission to â€the law†in a roundabout way that Jim Acosta and millions of other folks quickly and (I believe) correctly sensed (see below):
Long before the infamous press conference (one handled as well as possible by our heroine Sarah Sanders), Trump’s legal team, speaking for Trump, had already declared openly that a sitting President cannot be indicted for a crime. Please correct me if I am wrong, but I got the impression (from reading the reportage about the press conference) that the really big uproar in the presser happened when Acosta zoomed in on the Trump team’s more recently leaked threat to the effect that Trump would simply pardon himself out of any indictment.
I certainly don’t fault Trump’s lawyers for saying that a sitting POTUS cannot be indicted. If Acosta objected to that, so what? But it did seem to me, based on the snippets that I saw from the presser, that Acosta was righteously indignant about the President’s specific claim that he could pardon himself.
(The day after the press conference, by the way, all the news was about the President claiming that he could pardon himself. I saw nothing about any Constitutional argument that a sitting POTUS cannot be indicted in the first place. The next thing I read was Trump’s tweet that he has an absolute right to pardon himself.)
I flatly submit that the arrogation of a prerogative of a self-pardon—and the presentation of that claim to the enemy team—was a major blunder by Trump and his team. No matter what Trump and his lawyers would like to believe (perhaps), Trump’s legal claim is a ridiculously false claim that gives the appearance of pretty incredible hubris on the part of a President of the United States. The fact that Trump personally doubled down on Twitter made the whole mess even worse. Trump might very well wind up digging himself into deeper political trouble, perhaps under pressure from a cadre of badgering reporters, by publicly characterizing the self-pardon “loophole†as establishing a â€narrow but very real sense†in which the POTUS certainly is above the law.
Again, the Constitution obviously does not permit self-pardoning. The whole idea of pardoning oneself is patently absurd. (See my forthcoming post about this.)
No one has to be a Constitutional scholar to realize any of this. One only needs to be humbly sincere—which characteristics of humility and sincerity are widely regarded as seriously lacking in our current “a__hole President†(a term of affection used by one ardent Trumper I met). Whether or not Trump has the ability to face his own self-deception, his claim of a Constitutional prerogative of self-pardoning nets out as yet another political blunder. He has created (or perhaps enhanced) a pretty sleazy image for himself—this time involving an ostensibly self-serving attempt to upend the Constitution that he has sworn to uphold. (Our President should have thought longer and harder about the self-pardon theory. He seems to make far too many snap judgments and far too many ill-advised retorts to his adversaries. And I’m not impressed by anyone on his legal team—especially not Giuliani. [My reasons for loathing Giuliani have to do with his own slipshod interpretation of the Constitution in other very important Constitutional matters.)
So, yeah, Jim Acosta’s insinuations about our POTUS are not without merit, whether Trump realizes it or not and whether TBR’s Trumpers realize it or not. I am appalled that a shill like Acosta has taken the moral high ground away from Trump (who happens to be doing a very good job overall in the White House). The worst thing about the infamous exchange between Sarah Sanders and Jim Acosta is the fact that Trump’s awful interpretation of the Constitution fuels the MSM’s never-ending narrative that our current POTUS is a lying narcissist and a power-mad monster.
We can bet that this matter is not going away unless and until Trump recants his position concerning “self-pardons.†Even if he does so, it is political toothpaste that will be hard to put back into the tube.
Further, while the Trump legal team's position may be in error it certainly does not reflect a "breach of justice" as you state, rather, it is a position that fails to account for...as you say...natural law, under which no man may serve as his own judge under the law.
All of this said, Trump's lawyers are not playing a "nasty little game", what they are actually doing is playing politics...OK, I guess that is a nasty game but both sides play it...Schumer, the DNC and their ilk being the prime example of "nasty" little political players. I'd argue that the legal team knows Trump will never issue a self pardon...on the contrary, it appears he has no reason to do so as there is simply no evidence he's committed any crime...but making they argument that he CAN do so is simply posturing to send the signal that they will not be railroaded by the grotesquely biased Mueller team nor will they go quietly into the goodnight that the Left so desperately is seeking to manufacture from the ether.
Next, I would point out that I never said that the Trump team has perpetrated a breach of justice. Rather, I said that self-pardoning by a sitting President, if allowed, could precipitate a breach of justice.
The sort of breach to which I was referring ain’t gonna happen, of course, because the self-pardon would never be allowed anyway. But that’s not good news. (See below.)
Here’s a possible scenario: Mueller presses forward to indict Trump for Mueller’s favorite crime of obstruction of justice. Next, if a crookedly stupid federal judge were to allow the unconstitutional criminal prosecution of a sitting POTUS, and if Trump were to respond to the indictment by issuing a self-pardon, the judge would almost certainly tear Trump’s head off for daring to try that ploy. I suspect that the court would allow the prosecutor to say that the very attempt to self-pardon, although not clearly a crime in itself, actually does fit the overall picture (at least) of obstruction of justice.
(Hmmm…a reasonable judge might even declare that the self-pardon attempt is at least an impeachable crime in and of itself—given that it is so obviously disallowed by the Constitution and so obviously contemptuous of the Body Politic.)
The ruling against Trump’s attempted self-pardon could even wind up getting Trump impeached while the improper but court-authorized prosecution went forward. A big part of the impetus for impeachment, of course, would be, not merely the fact that Trump claimed and tried to exercise a right of self-pardon but also the fact that he is under arrest while still the POTUS. If Trump were to be impeached/convicted/removed in Congress, it would conceivably lend a kind of bogus legitimacy to the unconstitutional indictment and Trump could wind up in prison.
Even if Trump winds up only being removed from the Presidency. Mueller and his Deep State cronies would be perfectly content with that outcome. I’ll even bet that Mueller is right now salivating at the prospect of indicting Trump even if doing so would be flagrantly outside the guidelines of the DOJ. (Mueller is a highly motivated rogue prosecutor bent on taking Trump down in any way possible. Mueller cares nothing about DOJ policy—even if that means getting his hands slapped occasionally. [Getting his hands slapped would be better than going to jail for the corruption and conspiracy charges that will eventually be leveled against him by President Trump.])
Finally, let me say that I agree with Maj. Bill White that we shouldn’t be squeamish about defense lawyers using sleazy arguments to fight back against sleazy prosecutors What I have been trying to say in this post, however, is that the sleazy self-pardon defense is so bad as to be politically and perhaps even legally counterproductive. It's too dangerous to whisper to an enemy leaker, much less to assert boldly in a tweet.
Put simply, its become crystal clear that the President has done nothing worthy of impeachment or criminal prosecution...and his team is fighting back in a political way against what is little more than a political and unethical hit job from the Left. I may not approve of Rudy's tactics, but they are understandable in light of the lynch mob approach they face from the Dems.
I respectfully submit that your summary paragraph puts things too simply, for the reasons I have given in this post. My summary is as follows:
A self-pardon, if attempted, would be struck down by a federal judge in a New York minute. The claim of a prerogative of self-pardon would be thereby exposed as nothing by sleaze. Worst still, and more realistically, even claiming in advance a prerogative of self-pardon could wind up serving as both the trigger for an illegal indictment and the subsequent trigger for impeachment. In short, I really do fear that Trump will be railroaded if he keeps up his legally and politically stupid position.
Why can’t Trumps’ lawyers even visualize this worst-case freight train coming at them? I suspect it’s because they are so busy fashioning a cool stalemate defense based on silly word game in the Pardon Clause. My goodness, this is not the time to put forth a repugnant theory of self-pardon, especially when the client is a guy like Trump.
(By the way, I haven’t even mentioned the fall-out that Trump will face when he starts arresting Deep State bad actors and shipping them off to Gitmo and military trials for sedition and treason. That plan is definitely in the works, and it will freak out America.)
@Maj. Bill Martin
@Oceander
@Weird Tolkienish Figure
@Emjay
@Sanguine
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I disagree on several points, however, all I have the energy for in reply...for the moment...is to say:
You fell victim to one of the classic blunders—the most famous of which is, “Never get involved in a land war in Asiaâ€â€”but only slightly less well-known is this: “Never go against a Sicilian when death is on the lineâ€!
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I disagree on several points, however, all I have the energy for in reply...for the moment...is to say:
You fell victim to one of the classic blunders—the most famous of which is, “Never get involved in a land war in Asiaâ€â€”but only slightly less well-known is this: “Never go against a Sicilian when death is on the lineâ€!
Wow, that's a good quote, friend!
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Wow, that's a good quote, friend!
From one of the greatest movies of all time!
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From one of the greatest movies of all time!
What movie was that?
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What movie was that?
The Princess Bride.
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Ted Cruz on 'The Princess Bride'
! No longer available (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_mcie4Nasw#)
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A self-pardon, if attempted, would be struck down by a federal judge in a New York minute. The claim of a prerogative of self-pardon would be thereby exposed as nothing by sleaze. Worst still, and more realistically, even claiming in advance a prerogative of self-pardon could wind up serving as both the trigger for an illegal indictment and the subsequent trigger for impeachment. In short, I really do fear that Trump will be railroaded if he keeps up his legally and politically stupid position.
I disagree. I don't think a judge would even see the issue as being ripe for adjudication in the first place, as long as the President is still in office and not subject to indictment/criminal prosecution. The case would be dismissed because there wouldn't exist a criminal case in which the pardon had been raised as a defense. Courts don't decide "issues" before they become truly relevant. They only decide cases that are "ripe".
A pardon would be challenged as of the time a prosecutor decided to test it by indicting the President. The indictment would create a case, which would then be challenged by the President's lawyers as improper due to the pardon. The judge would then -- and very likely only then - decide whether or not the pardon is valid.
Why that may seem to be a "who cares" argument, the point is that a court ruling that the pardon is invalid wouldn't happen until after Trump already was out of office, and therefore wouldn't be part of the argument for removing him in the first place.
@the_doc
@Mesaclone
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From one of the greatest movies of all time!
There are so many great scenes in the movie, quite a few of which are quotable even in political debates. I love the one where Vizzini is going through that incredibly convoluted logic to make his guess as to which cup has the poison. Then there's "I do not think that word means what you think it means."
Great flick.
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Well, if they wanted to make it a public relations issue, as Giuliani has said about the Mueller probe, it's a loser, all around.
(https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/TrjLKlSfQiA6E8FUi1weYg--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTY0MDtoPTk0Mi43Mg--/https://s.yimg.com/uu/api/res/1.2/8iat2HoDuZkh.GeHeV.gPw--~B/aD0xNDczO3c9MTAwMDtzbT0xO2FwcGlkPXl0YWNoeW9u/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/ap_webfeeds/538780fd4ae60c26e10f6a706700c71d.jpg)
https://www.yahoo.com/news/ap-norc-poll-americans-no-presidential-self-pardons-120148682--politics.html (https://www.yahoo.com/news/ap-norc-poll-americans-no-presidential-self-pardons-120148682--politics.html)
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Well, if they wanted to make it a public relations issue, as Giuliani has said about the Mueller probe, it's a loser, all around.
(https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/TrjLKlSfQiA6E8FUi1weYg--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTY0MDtoPTk0Mi43Mg--/https://s.yimg.com/uu/api/res/1.2/8iat2HoDuZkh.GeHeV.gPw--~B/aD0xNDczO3c9MTAwMDtzbT0xO2FwcGlkPXl0YWNoeW9u/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/ap_webfeeds/538780fd4ae60c26e10f6a706700c71d.jpg)
https://www.yahoo.com/news/ap-norc-poll-americans-no-presidential-self-pardons-120148682--politics.html (https://www.yahoo.com/news/ap-norc-poll-americans-no-presidential-self-pardons-120148682--politics.html)
I agree -- it's a PR loser.
But the reason the argument was made in the first place wasn't PR. Giuliani (who needs to shut up anyway) only started talking about it after Mueller's team leaked it to the press, who jumped all over it as something with which to bash Trump over the head. The argument was advanced as part of a more complicated legal argument to Mueller that he can't compel the President to testify by subpoena, and has no recourse if the President refuses to be interviewed/testify voluntarily. That would be one of the bargaining chips to be used to set the ground rules for any interview to which Trump does consent, and that's a very important issue.
And honestly, I think that other than on obsessive political message boards like this one, the PR effect of claimed power to self-pardon has kind of dissipated. I don't think the average citizen really cares any more because it isn't an issue. But legally, it is still very much a relevant issue given that the issue of Trump testifying is still up in the air.
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I agree -- it's a PR loser.
But the reason the argument was made in the first place wasn't PR. Giuliani (who needs to shut up anyway) only started talking about it after Mueller's team leaked it to the press, who jumped all over it as something with which to bash Trump over the head. The argument was advanced as part of a more complicated legal argument to Mueller that he can't compel the President to testify by subpoena, and has no recourse if the President refuses to be interviewed/testify voluntarily. That would be one of the bargaining chips to be used to set the ground rules for any interview to which Trump does consent, and that's a very important issue.
And honestly, I think that other than on obsessive political message boards like this one, the PR effect of claimed power to self-pardon has kind of dissipated. I don't think the average citizen really cares any more because it isn't an issue. But legally, it is still very much a relevant issue given that the issue of Trump testifying is still up in the air.
Oddly, though, one of the authors of this letter and the strategy - John Dowd - left the legal team.
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The ability to self-pardon means a sitting President, on his last day in office (for example), could call his enemies into the Oval Office, gun then all down, then self-pardon (prior to being found guilty of anything just like Ford did when he pardoned Nixon), and face absolutely no consequences for his murderous acts. It is incomprehensible to me that this was the intent of the Founding Fathers, and I doubt the courts would recognize the "self-pardon". JMO.
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Oddly, though, one of the authors of this letter and the strategy - John Dowd - left the legal team.
True enough. I was just explaining why the argument was raised in the first place. And it's probably worthy of noting that Trump hasn't pardoned himself, and most likely has zero intention of doing so. That's probably why it just kind of drifted out of the news. It's a theoretical argument, not something he's actually done.
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Well, if they wanted to make it a public relations issue, as Giuliani has said about the Mueller probe, it's a loser, all around.
(https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/TrjLKlSfQiA6E8FUi1weYg--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTY0MDtoPTk0Mi43Mg--/https://s.yimg.com/uu/api/res/1.2/8iat2HoDuZkh.GeHeV.gPw--~B/aD0xNDczO3c9MTAwMDtzbT0xO2FwcGlkPXl0YWNoeW9u/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/ap_webfeeds/538780fd4ae60c26e10f6a706700c71d.jpg)
https://www.yahoo.com/news/ap-norc-poll-americans-no-presidential-self-pardons-120148682--politics.html (https://www.yahoo.com/news/ap-norc-poll-americans-no-presidential-self-pardons-120148682--politics.html)
Thanks for that post, @edpc! Among other things, the graphics prove what I have always maintained: A lot of Republicans really aren't honest political thinkers; really don't understand the importance of the original intent of the Constitution's Framers; and (thus) really don't respect the Constitution as well as they should. I would even go so far as to say that a lot of Republicans haven't proven that they understand our Republic of Constitutional Law well enough to be calling themselves Republicans.
In the present case, I am afraid that Trumpers are just Trumpers, so to speak. They want to back Trump even when he is wrong. This skews their judgment. (My wife and I sat out the 2016 election for conscientious reasons, but we support our POTUS whenever we can. On the flip side, we just don't intend to believe that Truimp is right when he's not.)
Mark Levin, oddly enough, may be largely to blame for the Trumpers' present confusion. To illustrate, my wife and I saw Levin making his letteristic argument supporting Trump's legal claim, and she looked over at me and said in an almost pained way that Levin's argument seems sound. I responded by saying that Levin is full of crap. I then spent about two minutes dissecting Levin's position, and my wife responded by saying something like "Wow, you're right. Levin is dead wrong."
Please see my next post.
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Well, if they wanted to make it a public relations issue, as Giuliani has said about the Mueller probe, it's a loser, all around.
(https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/TrjLKlSfQiA6E8FUi1weYg--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTY0MDtoPTk0Mi43Mg--/https://s.yimg.com/uu/api/res/1.2/8iat2HoDuZkh.GeHeV.gPw--~B/aD0xNDczO3c9MTAwMDtzbT0xO2FwcGlkPXl0YWNoeW9u/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/ap_webfeeds/538780fd4ae60c26e10f6a706700c71d.jpg)
https://www.yahoo.com/news/ap-norc-poll-americans-no-presidential-self-pardons-120148682--politics.html (https://www.yahoo.com/news/ap-norc-poll-americans-no-presidential-self-pardons-120148682--politics.html)
I would love to see results from this poll done in the 0bama years. I'll bet that the results would be flipped.
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@Mesaclone
@Maj. Bill White
@Oceander
@Smokin Joe
@Emjay
@edpc
@Sanguine
In my Post #154, I started summarizing the reasons why I maintain that the self-pardon defense is so bad that it would backfire on President Trump. In that earlier post, I presented what has been called the “Natural Law argument†against self-pardon. That is the best-known argument against self-pardons, and I regard it as devastating in and of itself. As it turns out, however, Trump’s position gets much, much worse when we look further.
THE PRESENT POST CONTINUES MY ARGUMENT AGAINST THE IDEA OF SELF-PARDONS:
Argument based on Federalist Paper #74: A pardon is an act of mercy.
The very idea of mercy inherent in a proper pardon presupposes that someone in a position of power grants the pardon out of a compassion for the plight of another soul suffering under the often harsh terms of criminal justice. Alexander Hamilton manifestly considered the power to grant a pardon to be a noble provision in the Constitution in that a pardon exemplifies a spirit of true charity, of kindness.
(Thanks to @Maj. Bill White for the above insights concerning Federalist Paper #74.)
One law professor has summarized the correct view of pardons by declaring that a pardon is for mercy, rather than for self-enrichment. The Constitution does not say this, but Hamilton implies as much.
Although there have been Presidential and gubernatorial pardons that we suspect to have been essentially purchased from corrupt Executives (e.g., some of the pardons granted by Bill Clinton just before he left the White House], these would amount to abuses of the power to pardon. The important principle that remains is that a pardon is decidedly ignoble if it is given for the benefit of the pardoner.
That being the case, a self-pardon is the most disgusting scenario of all for a so-called “pardon.â€
My bottom-line point is that our Framers never intended their words to be twisted to yield a “loophole†that a rogue President could jump through to escape criminal justice. An Originalist lawyer—i.e. the only kind of lawyer who honestly and consistently upholds the Constitution—would never parse the language of the Pardon Clause to claim that a POTUS has an absolute right to pardon himself.
(The fact that a defense attorney might posture in an attempt to save his Presidential client’s neck—especially when he is trying to save the POTUS from an unjust prosecution—is an altogether different matter. The problem with such posturing in this particular case is that a self-pardon could be quickly declared invalid. I don’t see how a federal judge would be able, given the courtroom setting, to duck the matter or even delay a ruling against the “pardon.†The Originalists’ evidence against self-pardoning is, in fact, so overwhelming that the theory of self-pardon should never be brought up, in my opinion.)
***
Argument from the root meaning of “pardonâ€: A pardon is necessarily a two-party transaction.
Since this is a serious exegetical argument, it ought to be especially sobering to lawyers. (See below.)
When we speak of “a pardon,†that combination of a noun with an article adjective would cause most people to think in narrow, technical (?) terms—i.e., most people would think about the noun “pardon†being used in the U.S. Constitution. Since the Constitution doesn’t bother to describe fully the overall characteristics of a proper pardon, most people would think of "a pardon" in what they believe is a cautiously narrow way--i.e., defining the noun â€pardon†as simply an exemption of a criminal from retributive justice. But that exemption from punishment is ultimately just the immediate (and undeniably consequential) result of the larger act of pardoning. In other words, there is more to a pardon than merely the result of the pardon.
To fully appreciate what I mean, we need to examine the verb “pardon.â€
If we bump into someone on a busy sidewalk, we almost reflexively say “Pardon me.†And we always make this request of the person whom we bumped. We do not shrug off the offense long enough to look around and find some uninvolved party from whom we might request a pardon. An uninvolved party cannot pardon us. Uninvolved parties would regard us as nuts if we were to say “Please pardon me for bumping into a lady a block or two from here.â€
In short, the power to pardon lies only with the offended party. This is a no-brainer. The general idea of pardoning is a matter of forgiveness. If you haven’t committed any offense whatsoever against me, the idea that I might choose to forgive you would be nonsensical. There would be nothing whatsoever for me to forgive.
Here, then, is the proper, amplified definition of a pardon: a pardon is a bestowal of full, complete forgiveness (including, of course, the ruling out of any vengeance or other retribution), which free-grace gift is sovereignly, mercifully granted by the offended party to a penitent petitioner (the fellow who caused the offense).
(The only reason why a President [or a State Governor] can grant pardons to perpetrators of crimes against the State, by the way, is because the Executive is the administrative representative of the offended State.)
And since the offender and the offended are necessarily two different parties, a self-pardon is a flagrant contradiction in terms. In other words, a self-pardon is an impossibility by definition. (Notice how this position dovetails with what I have already asserted based on Hamilton’s views of mercy.) Heck, the reason why the Framers never bothered to elucidate in the Pardon Clause all of the features of a legally proper pardon is because they didn't regard such elucidation as needed.
Hmmm....More on this later.
***
At this point, I would dare to claim that when we put this post with my Post #154, we have an ironclad case against self-pardoning for anything whatsoever.
Ah, but the President's hypothetical case gets even worse. I have saved the most important argument for last. (See my next post on this subject. The good news is that if we abandon the Trump team's crappy theory of self-pardoning, Trump's case against Mueller crystallizes properly and powerfully.)
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I think the case against self-pardoning can be summed up in three words:
Conflict of Interest
Such situations have never been something which set well with the American People's sense of fairness, and would only further the impression amongst the rank and file that Washington's best hope for ending the endemic and pervasive corruption there would involve a localized extinction level event on the order of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Polarization of the electorate has reached the point that either side would say the other deserved it.
Note that I am not calling for any such event to be perpetrated, by man nor diety.
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@Mesaclone
@Maj. Bill White
@Oceander
@Smokin Joe
@Emjay
@edpc
@Sanguine
In this post, I will present my concluding argument that a POTUS can never pardon himself for anything whatsoever.
THE ARGUMENT:
1) A sitting POTUS cannot pardon himself to thwart his own impeachment. The Impeachment Clause explicitly rules out the Presidential power to pardon for impeachment scenarios.
2) Although someone might very well say “Aha, that means that he can pardon himself in some other situation,†it turns out that there is no “other†Constitutional situation of criminal charges that can be made against a sitting POTUS. (A POTUS cannot pardon himself without being genuinely accused of a crime.)
QED: There is no situation whatsoever in which self-pardoning is legal. (Notice from my previous posts that this was surely presuppositional with our Framers--based largely on the etymology of a pardon as the State's sovereign forgiveness, not as a self-serving "loophole" that is necessarily only contemptuous of justice.)
***
If a sitting POTUS were to be indicted rather than impeached, the indictment itself would have to be simply defied as illegal. Claiming a prerogative of self-pardon is definitely the wrong defense. An illegal indictment does not suddenly make the Constitutionally repugnant claim of a self-pardon legal. (Read my previous posts to see why I call a self-pardon only a repugnant, snaky ploy.)
This approach of scoffing at the indictment is the moral and Constitutional high ground. If a seemingly (obviously?) crooked cop like Mueller continues trying to bring an indictment against Trump, Trump should open up a sealed indictment against Mueller (and perhaps his key prosecutors as well) for corruption, for conspiracy, for abuse of power, for flagrant violations of the Special Counsel statute, for sedition—and possibly even for full-fledged treason.
Heck, Mueller is actually pretty low-hanging fruit in the Republic’s life-and-death war against the Deep State. Mueller’s improprieties, past and present, would frame a perfect case-in-point as to why the Framers surely intended that impeachment be the only course for stopping a criminal President.
Arresting Mueller would be inflammatory, but I believe that it is a Constitutionally proper step. And the Constitution aside, smashing Mueller would be immeasurably wiser than trying to stalemate Mueller by a Presidential “self-pardon.†As the recent surveys suggest, the exercise of claiming a completely stupid self-pardon would be political suicide.
Besides, I would worry that claiming a prerogative of self-pardon would amount to a unstipulated (tacit) acknowledgment that that the criminal indictment was actually legal. (Oh, great! That would be a real muddy water scenario at best.) The Trump team should instead fight tooth-and-toenail to block an indictment on the grounds that it is flagrantly illegal and obviously borne of a spirit of sedition. To make this point emphatically, the Chief Executive should seriously entertain exercising his legal right to have his DOJ open a sealed indictment against a terribly shady character like Mueller. Arresting the Special Counsel would be frightfully but wonderfully dramatic. (A lot of folks would cry foul, but under the circumstances, that's just too bad.)
In short, just as our Framers would tell us that Mueller must not try to make a wickedly phony end-run around the important Constitutional step of impeachment, they would surely tell Trump not to try to make a wickedly phony end-run against the indictment by using a wickedly phony self-pardon. (Go after the bad guy. Don't become a bad guy yourself.)
The self-pardon would not be allowed. Period. It would leave Trump in a mess worse than ever. The Trump team would never get its momentum back. And as the recent survey suggests, a self-pardon could trigger an impeachment--perhaps even a concurrent impeachment--to get rid of a President who seemingly does “believe he is above the law.†(You can bet that Jim Acosta would start screaming out this complaint--along with everyone else in the Mockingbird Media. The MSM could reignite a political firestorm so fast that a lot of Pubbies in the House would start wetting their pants--as per usual.)
This case is not all that difficult if Trump goes vigorously and exclusively on the attack. Holding out hopes of hunkering down in a bunker of self-pardoning—or even mentioning again the prospect of self-pardoning—would precipitate a barrage of polemical howitzers that would only inflict horrible damage on Trump and his team. The bunker of self-pardon is not even a bunker. It is a worthlessly shallow foxhole that would simply disappear.
The Trump legal team needs to focus all of its energies on a shock-and-awe offensive against Mueller. That is not a strategy of desperation. It’s the right thing to do. And that makes it a winning strategy.
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I think Trump who is a grifter who has bamboozled a lot of good desperate folks. This will be his graceful exit..
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I think Trump who is a grifter who has bamboozled a lot of good desperate folks. This will be his graceful exit..
I actually think a lot of the folks he has bamboozled are not good folks. (LOL)
If you will check my posts, you will discover that I have never been clearly bamboozled, since I have never trusted Trump overly much--and I certainly don't mind saying I didn't vote in the 2016 election. But DJT is our POTUS, and I like most of what he is doing now.
The worst bamboozled folks are the ones who think Mueller is a hero who is trying to save the Republic.
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I actually think a lot of the folks he has bamboozled are not good folks. (LOL)...
I believe in giving the benefit of the doubt..
If you check my posts you will find I am a proud NT who believes Trump is not only a grifter but a cynically evil half wit whose intent is to destroy the Republic. I often say who knew the anti-Christ would have orange hair...
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I actually think a lot of the folks he has bamboozled are not good folks. (LOL)
If you will check my posts, you will discover that I have never been clearly bamboozled, since I have never trusted Trump overly much--and I certainly don't mind saying I didn't vote in the 2016 election. But DJT is our POTUS, and I like most of what he is doing now.
The worst bamboozled folks are the ones who think Mueller is a hero who is trying to save the Republic.
I have to agree with that last bit.
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I think Trump who is a grifter who has bamboozled a lot of good desperate folks. This will be his graceful exit..
I agree about how many people he has bambooled (e.g., lock her up and Mexico paying for the wall). I'm actually surprised at how many otherwise relatively bright folks have fallen for this con man.
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I agree about how many people he has bambooled (e.g., lock her up and Mexico paying for the wall). I'm actually surprised at how many otherwise relatively bright folks have fallen for this con man.
Well, we'll see if the swamp gets drained, or if it persists with a shift in the fauna. Some would think the latter "winning', but a swamp is a swamp.
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@Concerned
@montanajoe
@Sanguine
@Smokin Joe
@Quix
I agree about how many people he has bambooled (e.g., lock her up and Mexico paying for the wall). I'm actually surprised at how many otherwise relatively bright folks have fallen for this con man.
DJT definitely has the "skillset" and objectives-oriented ingenuity of a con man (look at his Art of the Deal, for example). That, in turn, could very well explain why you, like most Americans, haven't noticed what our inarguably bizarre and very, very shifty POTUS is actually doing.
Trumps's first step is not to "lock her up." It's not even his second or third step. Remember: Trump has also promised to drain the Swamp, not just "lock up crooked Hillary." He will lock her up when he is ready to pull the plug on the entire Swamp, not just HRC's corner of it.
This means that the President first needs to purge the bad actors from the FBI--since the FBI guys are the ones who will have to execute most of the arrest warrants and organize the evidence against Swamp denizens. (Firing a bunch of Deep State folks in a few Executive Branch agencies is by no means sufficient to "drain the Swamp." Trump has to attack the filthy Swamp with a veritable flamethrower of prosecutions.)
Next, President Trump has to re-take control of the DOJ (the department that obtains the indictments and prosecutes the defendants). After that, he has to root out corrupt bureaucrats in the State Department and purge some really, really bad guys from the CIA--because the State Department and the CIA appear to have the worst of the worst International Swamp denizens. (Yeah, the D.C. Swamp is actually just part of a Global Swamp. I believe Trump correctly understands that the Swamp has to be drained globally, not just in America. If he neglects the Global Socialist Cabal, the global filth will just quickly flow back in.)
(By the way, Trump's seemingly crude, undiplomatic policies and remarks to other countries have pissed off a lot of Heads of State, but Trump's rhetoric and deeds have manifestly emboldened the citizens of several countries to start draining their own parts of the Global Swamp. Oppressed people all over the world are following American politics like never before in history. [Some pundits have predicted, by the way, that Merkel will be gone by November; also, the EU [a political project that happens to be very precious to the Globalists] is beginning to unravel.)
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Back to the domestic mess: I submit that cleaning up the FBI, DOJ, State Department and CIA are just interim objectives. Trump is quietly using his military intelligence team and a number of reliable federal prosecutors [with more public help from a few patriots in the Congress] to investigate all of the aforementioned agencies--but the round-up of seditious crooks will likely reach into every federal agency plus the Congress itself and the federal Court System and many if not most State governments as well.
(And yeah, the Sanctuary State(s) and Cities have to be crushed for their sheer rebellion against our Constitutional Republic; also, rampant voting fraud has to be stopped at the level of the State and local governments. The two crimes of illegal immigration and illegal voting are crucial to the Deep State's mechanism for continually feeding sewage into the Deep State Swamp.
Furthermore, Trump still has to find a way to build the wall, even if he hasn't yet figured out how he is going to get it funded. In one way or another, the active duty U.S. military is likely going to be used to enforce federal law [in California, at least, and not just on California's southern border].)
Draining the Swamp in a meaningful way will also require that our POTUS secure and organize damaging evidence of a massive and truly seditious conspiracy by the MSM, by Hollywood, and by crooked "crony capitalists" (who are actually Socialists, in the final analysis). All of this legally actionable evidence seems to be coming together at this time (largely from the tedious work of Trump's military intelligence personnel, I am told).
What I am saying, in essence, is that Trump's challenge is orders of magnitude more difficult than his conservative but impatient detractors realize. Trump has to juggle a zillion issues concurrently. And I haven't even mentioned Trump's fight with the rogue prosecutor who is endlessly harassing Trump in a desperate attempt to thwart Trump's WAR against the Deep State.
***
As it turns out, the Deep State's war against the United States started decades ago, but Trump's part in America's counteroffensive against the Deep State began in 2015, when top military personnel met secretly with him and persuaded him to run for President. (Our military was appalled to see what they regarded as the impending collapse of the Republic. Trump was likewise appalled at the scope of our necessary war against sedition and treason--which explains why he ran for office and, after winning the 2016 election, immediately appointed so many military men and women to his White House team.)
When Anthony Weiner's laptop files came to light (well, barely came to light), Hillary Clinton definitely became the prime candidate for prosecution (in spite of the crooked FBI's exoneration of HRC). Trump could have her indicted and arrested at any time; this goes without saying.
Unbeknownst to the public, however, the laptop files reportedly revealed almost unfathomably vicious, sordid corruption throughout the politics and high society of the United States in a way that linked America's vicious and powerful crooks to vicious and powerful crooks all over the world. The corruption was so pervasive and so filthy that an anonymous leaker, supposedly an FBI agent, started up a Dark Website a couple of years ago, on which website he warned that the revelations from the laptop were so damning and so widespread in scope (throughout America and the world) and so hideous (involving damning evidence of murderous pedophilia) that he feared that any immediate release of the files on the laptop could start a full-fledged civil war in America--likely collapsing our entire government--and might even start a third World War.
At least one high-level official in the NYPD has corroborated the leaker's report of the heinousness of the criminality revealed on the laptop, especially the video files Weiner kept in his "Insurance Folder." Two of the NYPD detectives who reportedly had to watch the videos before the laptop was turned over to the FBI have since been murdered in ambush situations.
***
The preservation of America's national sanity likely depends on a carefully controlled release of the amazing and awful details of an ENORMOUS network of corruption in practically every aspect of American life. This controlled-release approach has been called "the red-pilling of America." The public simply can't swallow all of the toxic stuff all at once. Unfortunately, this means that the public is not ready for HRC to be arrested. Why? Because as soon as Hillary Clinton is prosecuted, practically the whole, ungodly mess of today's world and today's America will explode into the light.
When President Trump deems that the time is right, Hillary will be subjected to a military arrest for a litany of crimes against humanity and against the Republic. These will include capital crimes, including sedition and treason. Obama himself will likely be arrested in the same time frame. And there will be tens of thousands of other federal prosecutions. The number of federal indictments formed and sealed between November 1, 2017, and today is over 35,000. This is the highest number in American history--in, fact, about fifty times higher than the normal rate of sealed federal indictments filed in our court system. The flamethrower of prosecutions will be the biggest in American history--and probably the biggest ever in a true democracy. The Nuremburg trials will seem puny by comparison.
Thus it would appear that Jeff Sessions has been very, very busy. (A lot of Trump's complaints about Sessions have likely been "political theater," the director of which production would surely be the Con-Man-in-Chief.)
Anyway, Hillary Clinton knows what's happening. So does Obama. This is why they have pulled out all stops to take down Trump. Remember: Hillary herself is reported to have said "If that [bleep] wins the election, we will all hang by nooses!"
(Notice that she said "all." She was talking about her entire conspiratorial network. Notice also that she didn't merely say "We will all hang," but rather "hang by nooses." The idea of hanging could be taken as a metaphor for just being in terrible trouble. But she was talking about capital punishment. [Well, I don't believe that our military uses hanging anymore, but I will charitably give her credit for having the right overall idea.])
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Am inclined to agree with you.
However, I do not believe God is going to allow Trump to be removed from office for a total of 8 years. I just don't. Time will tell.
I am dismayed at how many normally bright folks seem to be wearing very foggy glasses when it comes to assessing Trump's good points. Thankfully, God, who has raised him up to do HIS bidding--has no such problem.
Trump can't accomplish much in his own strength--though above average as Presidents go. The size of this task REQUIRES God's resources and the prayers of all faithful believers.
@Mesaclone
@Maj. Bill White
@Oceander
@Smokin Joe
@Emjay
@edpc
@Sanguine
In my Post #154, I started summarizing the reasons why I maintain that the self-pardon defense is so bad that it would backfire on President Trump. In that earlier post, I presented what has been called the “Natural Law argument†against self-pardon. That is the best-known argument against self-pardons, and I regard it as devastating in and of itself. As it turns out, however, Trump’s position gets much, much worse when we look further.
THE PRESENT POST CONTINUES MY ARGUMENT AGAINST THE IDEA OF SELF-PARDONS:
Argument based on Federalist Paper #74: A pardon is an act of mercy.
The very idea of mercy inherent in a proper pardon presupposes that someone in a position of power grants the pardon out of a compassion for the plight of another soul suffering under the often harsh terms of criminal justice. Alexander Hamilton manifestly considered the power to grant a pardon to be a noble provision in the Constitution in that a pardon exemplifies a spirit of true charity, of kindness.
(Thanks to @Maj. Bill White for the above insights concerning Federalist Paper #74.)
One law professor has summarized the correct view of pardons by declaring that a pardon is for mercy, rather than for self-enrichment. The Constitution does not say this, but Hamilton implies as much.
Although there have been Presidential and gubernatorial pardons that we suspect to have been essentially purchased from corrupt Executives (e.g., some of the pardons granted by Bill Clinton just before he left the White House], these would amount to abuses of the power to pardon. The important principle that remains is that a pardon is decidedly ignoble if it is given for the benefit of the pardoner.
That being the case, a self-pardon is the most disgusting scenario of all for a so-called “pardon.â€
My bottom-line point is that our Framers never intended their words to be twisted to yield a “loophole†that a rogue President could jump through to escape criminal justice. An Originalist lawyer—i.e. the only kind of lawyer who honestly and consistently upholds the Constitution—would never parse the language of the Pardon Clause to claim that a POTUS has an absolute right to pardon himself.
(The fact that a defense attorney might posture in an attempt to save his Presidential client’s neck—especially when he is trying to save the POTUS from an unjust prosecution—is an altogether different matter. The problem with such posturing in this particular case is that a self-pardon could be quickly declared invalid. I don’t see how a federal judge would be able, given the courtroom setting, to duck the matter or even delay a ruling against the “pardon.†The Originalists’ evidence against self-pardoning is, in fact, so overwhelming that the theory of self-pardon should never be brought up, in my opinion.)
***
Argument from the root meaning of “pardonâ€: A pardon is necessarily a two-party transaction.
Since this is a serious exegetical argument, it ought to be especially sobering to lawyers. (See below.)
When we speak of “a pardon,†that combination of a noun with an article adjective would cause most people to think in narrow, technical (?) terms—i.e., most people would think about the noun “pardon†being used in the U.S. Constitution. Since the Constitution doesn’t bother to describe fully the overall characteristics of a proper pardon, most people would think of "a pardon" in what they believe is a cautiously narrow way--i.e., defining the noun â€pardon†as simply an exemption of a criminal from retributive justice. But that exemption from punishment is ultimately just the immediate (and undeniably consequential) result of the larger act of pardoning. In other words, there is more to a pardon than merely the result of the pardon.
To fully appreciate what I mean, we need to examine the verb “pardon.â€
If we bump into someone on a busy sidewalk, we almost reflexively say “Pardon me.†And we always make this request of the person whom we bumped. We do not shrug off the offense long enough to look around and find some uninvolved party from whom we might request a pardon. An uninvolved party cannot pardon us. Uninvolved parties would regard us as nuts if we were to say “Please pardon me for bumping into a lady a block or two from here.â€
In short, the power to pardon lies only with the offended party. This is a no-brainer. The general idea of pardoning is a matter of forgiveness. If you haven’t committed any offense whatsoever against me, the idea that I might choose to forgive you would be nonsensical. There would be nothing whatsoever for me to forgive.
Here, then, is the proper, amplified definition of a pardon: a pardon is a bestowal of full, complete forgiveness (including, of course, the ruling out of any vengeance or other retribution), which free-grace gift is sovereignly, mercifully granted by the offended party to a penitent petitioner (the fellow who caused the offense).
(The only reason why a President [or a State Governor] can grant pardons to perpetrators of crimes against the State, by the way, is because the Executive is the administrative representative of the offended State.)
And since the offender and the offended are necessarily two different parties, a self-pardon is a flagrant contradiction in terms. In other words, a self-pardon is an impossibility by definition. (Notice how this position dovetails with what I have already asserted based on Hamilton’s views of mercy.) Heck, the reason why the Framers never bothered to elucidate in the Pardon Clause all of the features of a legally proper pardon is because they didn't regard such elucidation as needed.
Hmmm....More on this later.
***
At this point, I would dare to claim that when we put this post with my Post #154, we have an ironclad case against self-pardoning for anything whatsoever.
Ah, but the President's hypothetical case gets even worse. I have saved the most important argument for last. (See my next post on this subject. The good news is that if we abandon the Trump team's crappy theory of self-pardoning, Trump's case against Mueller crystallizes properly and powerfully.)
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Trumps's first step is not to "lock her up." It's not even his second or third step. Remember: Trump has also promised to drain the Swamp, not just "lock up crooked Hillary." He will lock her up when he is ready to pull the plug on the entire Swamp, not just HRC's corner of it.
I think only a con-man's supporters could argue that NOT doing what he said he'd do is actually doing what he said.
*****rollingeyes***** Promises kept, right? It's absolutely amazing to me! "Lock her up", "drain the swamp", Mexico paying for the wall, proposing a Constitutional Amendment for term limits, -- I predict he'll do none of it. EVER.
@the_doc
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I think only a con-man's supporters could argue that NOT doing what he said he'd do is actually doing what he said.
*****rollingeyes***** Promises kept, right? It's absolutely amazing to me! "Lock her up", "drain the swamp", Mexico paying for the wall, proposing a Constitutional Amendment for term limits, -- I predict he'll do none of it. EVER.
@the_doc
Well, you are just not paying attention to what Trump is doing to drain the swamp, the first steps of which are a necessary prelude to arresting Clinton and Obama and several thousand others.
Remember: Trump has been in office for only seventeen months. And he has set a spectacular record for sealed indictments in the past eight months.
The wall is a high priority, but the recent omnibus bill blocked building the wall. Trump is now doubling down on the need for the wall, and if motivated voters stomp on the Dems and RINOs in November--and I submit that the voters will do that, when they finally realize (likely by late summer) how deep and wide the Deep State Swamp is--Trump will get his wall in spite of the obstruction to date. (Perhaps he will yet find a way to force Mexico to "pay for the wall" after it's built--but that cannot be a high priority at this time.)
It is not yet time to talk about term limits. That needs to wait until after the November elections.
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Well, you are just not paying attention to what Trump is doing to drain the swamp, the first steps of which are a necessary prelude to arresting Clinton and Obama and several thousand others.
Remember: Trump has been in office for only seventeen months. And he has set a spectacular record for sealed indictments in the past eight months.
The wall is a high priority, but the recent omnibus bill blocked building the wall. Trump is now doubling down on the need for the wall, and if motivated voters stomp on the Dems and RINOs in November--and I submit that the voters will do that, when they finally realize (likely by late summer) how deep and wide the Deep State Swamp is--Trump will get his wall in spite of the obstruction to date. (Perhaps he will yet find a way to force Mexico to "pay for the wall" after it's built--but that cannot be a high priority at this time.)
It is not yet time to talk about term limits. That needs to wait until after the November elections.
What I have been paying attention to are Trump supporters saying how the FBI (Trump appointee) is corrupt; how the Department of Justice (Trump appointee) is corrupt; how the guy overseeing the Mueller investigation (Trump appointee) is corrupt. How is this draining the swamp? “Only the best peopleâ€, right?
If you think "Obama and several thousand others" are going to be arrested, I'm afraid you're delusional because I've seen no evidence whatsoever that's going to occur.
Relative to term limits, Trump is the one who promised a proposal for a Constitutional Amendment for those within his first 100 days. That wasn't me. That was him. He's the one who broke that promise just like he has broken promises on Mexico paying for the wall, naming China a currency manipulator, locking her up, putting us on a path to eliminate the debt within his two terms, etc. etc. etc. etc.
@the_doc
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What I have been paying attention to are Trump supporters saying how the FBI (Trump appointee) is corrupt; how the Department of Justice (Trump appointee) is corrupt; how the guy overseeing the Mueller investigation (Trump appointee) is corrupt. How is this draining the swamp? “Only the best peopleâ€, right?
If you think "Obama and several thousand others" are going to be arrested, I'm afraid you're delusional because I've seen no evidence whatsoever that's going to occur.
Relative to term limits, Trump is the one who promised a proposal for a Constitutional Amendment for those within his first 100 days. That wasn't me. That was him. He's the one who broke that promise just like he has broken promises on Mexico paying for the wall, naming China a currency manipulator, locking her up, putting us on a path to eliminate the debt within his two terms, etc. etc. etc. etc.
@the_doc
I have zinger retorts for all of your complaints. But since you have dismissed everything I have said, I have decided not to trouble you any further. (LOL)
(But you really ought to brace yourself for the coming tsunami.)
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(But you really ought to brace yourself for the coming tsunami.)
You're going to have to define tsunami. I don't want to expect Banda Aceh and get Madagascar.
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What I have been paying attention to are Trump supporters saying how the FBI (Trump appointee) is corrupt; how the Department of Justice (Trump appointee) is corrupt; how the guy overseeing the Mueller investigation (Trump appointee) is corrupt. How is this draining the swamp? “Only the best peopleâ€, right?
If you think "Obama and several thousand others" are going to be arrested, I'm afraid you're delusional because I've seen no evidence whatsoever that's going to occur.
Relative to term limits, Trump is the one who promised a proposal for a Constitutional Amendment for those within his first 100 days. That wasn't me. That was him. He's the one who broke that promise just like he has broken promises on Mexico paying for the wall, naming China a currency manipulator, locking her up, putting us on a path to eliminate the debt within his two terms, etc. etc. etc. etc.
We have heard this song and dance before by those hoping for justice from a wholly corrupted government.
(https://swordattheready.files.wordpress.com/2018/06/awheretheline.jpg)
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So Concise, Thanks @INVAR
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You're going to have to define tsunami. I don't want to expect Banda Aceh and get Madagascar.
LOL. You'll know it when it hits, probably late this summer.
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I have zinger retorts for all of your complaints. But since you have dismissed everything I have said, I have decided not to trouble you any further. (LOL)
(But you really ought to brace yourself for the coming tsunami.)
@the_doc
That's Right @Concerned. As President Trump says frequently "You just wait. You'll see! You'll find out. Believe me."
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@Mesaclone
@Maj. Bill White
@Oceander
@Smokin Joe
@Emjay
@edpc
@Sanguine
[As I said in an earlier post,] the Trump legal team needs to focus all of its energies on a shock-and-awe offensive against Mueller. That is not a strategy of desperation. It’s the right thing to do. And that makes it a winning strategy.
This post is the final post of four posts arguing that the Trump team’s threat to use a supposed prerogative of self-pardoning is the wrong defense against a possible criminal indictment by Mueller.
More to the point, and perhaps even more important, abandoning the self-pardoning defense actually BOLSTERS the legally crucial argument that a regular criminal indictment of a sitting POTUS is DISALLOWED by the Constitution. (If, on the other hand, the Trump team asserts a self-pardon defense against a criminal indictment, that very defense is a tacit admission that the indictment is proper—which amounts to a legal concession that the Trump team MUST NOT MAKE.)
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SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT:
There are many arguments against allowing a criminal court indictment of a sitting POTUS, but here’s one that everyone seems to have overlooked: The Framers explicitly ruled out any self-pardon for thwarting a President’s impeachment—doing so in passing, as it were, in their discussion of impeachments--but they did not do bother to rule out a self-pardon “loophole†in the case of a criminal (court) indictment. Why not? It’s largely because there is no such "self-pardon" loophole to be ruled out.
Again, why not? It’s because a sitting POTUS cannot be indicted in the first place—i.e. apart from the impeachment scenario, there was/is no self-pardon scenario to be ruled out by the Framers.
In short, claiming a Presidential prerogative of self-pardon in the face of an unconstitutional criminal indictment is not a back-up defense. It is a disaster. The Trump team’s well-publicized defense theory is diametrically OPPOSED to the only correct defense.
(The only proper BACK-UP defense against Mueller is that of indicting and arresting Mueller sooner rather than later. That correct defense is a slam-dunk defense against a manifestly dirty prosecutor. [Heck, the best defense is always a good offense.])
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You just know that the nominate Justice is going to be asked about this during the hearing.
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You just know that the nominate Justice is going to be asked about this during the hearing.
I hadn't thought about that, but you're probably correct. If so, I certainly hope Kavanaugh gives a good answer. The Trump team needs to be forewarned not to raise the disastrous issue of a Presidential self-pardon if push comes to shove between Trump and Mueller.
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GREATLY AGREE. VERY WELL PUT. THANKS.
@Concerned
@montanajoe
@Sanguine
@Smokin Joe
@Quix
DJT definitely has the "skillset" and objectives-oriented ingenuity of a con man (look at his Art of the Deal, for example). That, in turn, could very well explain why you, like most Americans, haven't noticed what our inarguably bizarre and very, very shifty POTUS is actually doing.
Trumps's first step is not to "lock her up." It's not even his second or third step. Remember: Trump has also promised to drain the Swamp, not just "lock up crooked Hillary." He will lock her up when he is ready to pull the plug on the entire Swamp, not just HRC's corner of it.
This means that the President first needs to purge the bad actors from the FBI--since the FBI guys are the ones who will have to execute most of the arrest warrants and organize the evidence against Swamp denizens. (Firing a bunch of Deep State folks in a few Executive Branch agencies is by no means sufficient to "drain the Swamp." Trump has to attack the filthy Swamp with a veritable flamethrower of prosecutions.)
Next, President Trump has to re-take control of the DOJ (the department that obtains the indictments and prosecutes the defendants). After that, he has to root out corrupt bureaucrats in the State Department and purge some really, really bad guys from the CIA--because the State Department and the CIA appear to have the worst of the worst International Swamp denizens. (Yeah, the D.C. Swamp is actually just part of a Global Swamp. I believe Trump correctly understands that the Swamp has to be drained globally, not just in America. If he neglects the Global Socialist Cabal, the global filth will just quickly flow back in.)
(By the way, Trump's seemingly crude, undiplomatic policies and remarks to other countries have pissed off a lot of Heads of State, but Trump's rhetoric and deeds have manifestly emboldened the citizens of several countries to start draining their own parts of the Global Swamp. Oppressed people all over the world are following American politics like never before in history. [Some pundits have predicted, by the way, that Merkel will be gone by November; also, the EU [a political project that happens to be very precious to the Globalists] is beginning to unravel.)
***
Back to the domestic mess: I submit that cleaning up the FBI, DOJ, State Department and CIA are just interim objectives. Trump is quietly using his military intelligence team and a number of reliable federal prosecutors [with more public help from a few patriots in the Congress] to investigate all of the aforementioned agencies--but the round-up of seditious crooks will likely reach into every federal agency plus the Congress itself and the federal Court System and many if not most State governments as well.
(And yeah, the Sanctuary State(s) and Cities have to be crushed for their sheer rebellion against our Constitutional Republic; also, rampant voting fraud has to be stopped at the level of the State and local governments. The two crimes of illegal immigration and illegal voting are crucial to the Deep State's mechanism for continually feeding sewage into the Deep State Swamp.
Furthermore, Trump still has to find a way to build the wall, even if he hasn't yet figured out how he is going to get it funded. In one way or another, the active duty U.S. military is likely going to be used to enforce federal law [in California, at least, and not just on California's southern border].)
Draining the Swamp in a meaningful way will also require that our POTUS secure and organize damaging evidence of a massive and truly seditious conspiracy by the MSM, by Hollywood, and by crooked "crony capitalists" (who are actually Socialists, in the final analysis). All of this legally actionable evidence seems to be coming together at this time (largely from the tedious work of Trump's military intelligence personnel, I am told).
What I am saying, in essence, is that Trump's challenge is orders of magnitude more difficult than his conservative but impatient detractors realize. Trump has to juggle a zillion issues concurrently. And I haven't even mentioned Trump's fight with the rogue prosecutor who is endlessly harassing Trump in a desperate attempt to thwart Trump's WAR against the Deep State.
***
As it turns out, the Deep State's war against the United States started decades ago, but Trump's part in America's counteroffensive against the Deep State began in 2015, when top military personnel met secretly with him and persuaded him to run for President. (Our military was appalled to see what they regarded as the impending collapse of the Republic. Trump was likewise appalled at the scope of our necessary war against sedition and treason--which explains why he ran for office and, after winning the 2016 election, immediately appointed so many military men and women to his White House team.)
When Anthony Weiner's laptop files came to light (well, barely came to light), Hillary Clinton definitely became the prime candidate for prosecution (in spite of the crooked FBI's exoneration of HRC). Trump could have her indicted and arrested at any time; this goes without saying.
Unbeknownst to the public, however, the laptop files reportedly revealed almost unfathomably vicious, sordid corruption throughout the politics and high society of the United States in a way that linked America's vicious and powerful crooks to vicious and powerful crooks all over the world. The corruption was so pervasive and so filthy that an anonymous leaker, supposedly an FBI agent, started up a Dark Website a couple of years ago, on which website he warned that the revelations from the laptop were so damning and so widespread in scope (throughout America and the world) and so hideous (involving damning evidence of murderous pedophilia) that he feared that any immediate release of the files on the laptop could start a full-fledged civil war in America--likely collapsing our entire government--and might even start a third World War.
At least one high-level official in the NYPD has corroborated the leaker's report of the heinousness of the criminality revealed on the laptop, especially the video files Weiner kept in his "Insurance Folder." Two of the NYPD detectives who reportedly had to watch the videos before the laptop was turned over to the FBI have since been murdered in ambush situations.
***
The preservation of America's national sanity likely depends on a carefully controlled release of the amazing and awful details of an ENORMOUS network of corruption in practically every aspect of American life. This controlled-release approach has been called "the red-pilling of America." The public simply can't swallow all of the toxic stuff all at once. Unfortunately, this means that the public is not ready for HRC to be arrested. Why? Because as soon as Hillary Clinton is prosecuted, practically the whole, ungodly mess of today's world and today's America will explode into the light.
When President Trump deems that the time is right, Hillary will be subjected to a military arrest for a litany of crimes against humanity and against the Republic. These will include capital crimes, including sedition and treason. Obama himself will likely be arrested in the same time frame. And there will be tens of thousands of other federal prosecutions. The number of federal indictments formed and sealed between November 1, 2017, and today is over 35,000. This is the highest number in American history--in, fact, about fifty times higher than the normal rate of sealed federal indictments filed in our court system. The flamethrower of prosecutions will be the biggest in American history--and probably the biggest ever in a true democracy. The Nuremburg trials will seem puny by comparison.
Thus it would appear that Jeff Sessions has been very, very busy. (A lot of Trump's complaints about Sessions have likely been "political theater," the director of which production would surely be the Con-Man-in-Chief.)
Anyway, Hillary Clinton knows what's happening. So does Obama. This is why they have pulled out all stops to take down Trump. Remember: Hillary herself is reported to have said "If that [bleep] wins the election, we will all hang by nooses!"
(Notice that she said "all." She was talking about her entire conspiratorial network. Notice also that she didn't merely say "We will all hang," but rather "hang by nooses." The idea of hanging could be taken as a metaphor for just being in terrible trouble. But she was talking about capital punishment. [Well, I don't believe that our military uses hanging anymore, but I will charitably give her credit for having the right overall idea.])
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I believe in giving the benefit of the doubt..
If you check my posts you will find I am a proud NT who believes Trump is not only a grifter but a cynically evil half wit whose intent is to destroy the Republic. I often say who knew the anti-Christ would have orange hair...
You will know if they start requiring Trump Temple Tax.
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