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Trump and Jail

acbytesla said:
There isn't a word in the Constitution that suggests that a prison sentence can be waived because the person has been elected.
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That's true. But this is also true:

There isn't a word in the Constitution that suggests that a prison sentence cannot be waived because the person has been elected.
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The first quote is one of those things that used to go without saying. There was a tradition of pretty well following normal ways of such things, to the point that it never really seemed necessary to really codify it into law - just like we have not laws stating that a President can't pardon himself.

After all, why would be need such laws? It would seem crazy to suggest that a President could just pardon himself, or that getting elected to be President conferred a sort of a commutation of sentence because the people elected that person to the office and the functions of the office can't be carried out from a Supermax or from Gitmo.

But here we are.

Our reliance upon sanity rather than code is turning out to be a problem.
 
crescent said:
That's true. But this is also true:



The first quote is one of those things that used to go without saying. There was a tradition of pretty well following normal ways of such things, to the point that it never really seemed necessary to really codify it into law - just like we have not laws stating that a President can't pardon himself.

After all, why would be need such laws? It would seem crazy to suggest that a President could just pardon himself, or that getting elected to be President conferred a sort of a commutation of sentence because the people elected that person to the office and the functions of the office can't be carried out from a Supermax or from Gitmo.

But here we are.
Our reliance upon sanity rather than code is turning out to be a problem.
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Where is that exactly? SCOTUS doesn't write laws. It interprets the laws. It must operate within the framework of what is written, not what isn't. It might be possible for Trump to pardon himself on Federal charges ....although this is a legal stretch that most legal scholars disagree with.

But the President cannot pardon himself of State charges.
 
Laws don't matter in dictatorships. The dictator dictates, and other people just do it.
 
acbytesla said:
There isn't a word in the Constitution that suggests that a prison sentence can be waived because the person has been elected.
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There isn't a word in the Constitution about executive privilege (which conservatives defend) or female bodily autonomy (which progressives defend) but SCOTUS has seen fit to read in both on various occasions.

acbytesla said:
SCOTUS doesn't write laws. It interprets the laws. It must operate within the framework of what is written, not what isn't.
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Prepare to be unpleasantly surprised.
 
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acbytesla said:
There isn't a word in the Constitution that suggests that a prison sentence can be waived because the person has been elected.
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The Originalist interpretation of the constitution is that you should shut the **** up and not presume to raise a critique of your betters. This is only a slight exaggeration of what conservative legal thought is on the legal authority of the executive (at least when it's a right winger). It won't be hard for the current right wing court to find some combination of excuses for why then President Trump was incapable of committing a crime and/or it's illegal for anyone to do anything about any such crime.
 
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I don’t know why people think that SCOTUS is going to make some bizarre ruling to protect Trump. This court has ruled against his arguments of Executive Privilege over and over and over. I don’t trust Thomas or Alito. But I don’t think the Supreme Court will protect Trump.

I have yet to hear anything even close to a reasonable argument.
 
acbytesla said:
I don’t know why people think that SCOTUS is going to make some bizarre ruling to protect Trump. This court has ruled against his arguments of Executive Privilege over and over and over. I don’t trust Thomas or Alito. But I don’t think the Supreme Court will protect Trump.

I have yet to hear anything even close to a reasonable argument.
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In the Bush V Gore electoral decision, the Conservative majority specifically wrote into the opinion that it was a special decision and should not be used as precedent for any other decision. Whether or not a right wing court would bend over backwards to give a Republican president special treatment is not a theoretical question, they've already done it and it stands to reason they might do it again.

For Bush v. Gore notoriously announced that “[o]ur consideration is limited to the present circumstances,” a line which some legal academics likened to a ticket good for one day only, or a self-destruct mechanism: after the President was chosen, the case blew up. Was the Supreme Court really trying to signal that Bush v. Gore should have no precedential value?
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https://www.yalelawjournal.org/forum/please-dona8217t-cite-this-case-the-precedential-value-of-bush-v-gore
 
acbytesla said:
I have yet to hear anything even close to a reasonable argument.
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All the conservative justices have to do is scratch out the bits about communications in United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683 (1974) and replace them with freedom of movement and action rather than unfettered communication.

Here is the original text:
Whatever the nature of the privilege of confidentiality of Presidential communications in the exercise of Art. II powers, the privilege can be said to derive from the supremacy of each branch within its own assigned area of constitutional duties. Certain powers and privileges flow from the nature of enumerated powers; the protection of the confidentiality of Presidential communications has similar constitutional underpinnings.​

The new text would read something like this:
Whatever the nature of the privilege of freedom of action of Presidential exercise of Art. II powers, the privilege can be said to derive from the supremacy of each branch within its own assigned area of constitutional duties. Certain powers and privileges flow from the nature of enumerated powers; the protection of Presidential freedom of action has similar constitutional underpinnings.​
Voilà!
 
d4m10n said:
All the conservative justices have to do is scratch out the bits about communications in United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683 (1974) and replace them with freedom of movement and action rather than unfettered communication.

Here is the original text:
Whatever the nature of the privilege of confidentiality of Presidential communications in the exercise of Art. II powers, the privilege can be said to derive from the supremacy of each branch within its own assigned area of constitutional duties. Certain powers and privileges flow from the nature of enumerated powers; the protection of the confidentiality of Presidential communications has similar constitutional underpinnings.​

The new text would read something like this:
Whatever the nature of the privilege of freedom of action of Presidential exercise of Art. II powers, the privilege can be said to derive from the supremacy of each branch within its own assigned area of constitutional duties. Certain powers and privileges flow from the nature of enumerated powers; the protection of Presidential freedom of action has similar constitutional underpinnings.​
Voilà!
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That's a giant leap. There is no enumerated power to commit election fraud.

You might as well make Nixon's argument made during the David Feost interview. That is, that a crime isn't a crime if the President does it. You are arguing against any limits for the President.

BTW, In US v Nixon SCOTUS in an 8 - 0 ruling decided that the President does not have an unlimited right to confidentiality and ordered that the tapes be released to the Watergate Committee.

And this court has used that decision to deny Trump and his allies the claim of Executive Privilege.
 
There's an enumerated power to do anything until somebody stops you, and Trump and GOP have been riding that way for the last few years.

Precedent doesn't matter. "What the rules say" doesn't matter.

Who blinks first is all that matters. Who backs down first is all that matters.
 
JoeMorgue said:
There's an enumerated power to do anything until somebody stops you, and Trump and GOP have been riding that way for the last few years.

Precedent doesn't matter. "What the rules say" doesn't matter.

Who blinks first is all that matters. Who backs down first is all that matters.
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Actually, there's not. And you have the Supreme Court not only ignoring precedence of previous courts but its own rulings.
 
Trump and jail. Two words that will never have "in" between them, except in the pining sense.

The flimsiest of pretexts will be used to not have him in a cell. Anything. Technicalities. Missing procedural form. Whatever. The optics are too awful to lock up one of our presidents. Those below him on his scummy chain of command, sure. Him, no way. He will walk as a free man till he drops dead in a Floridian McDonald's drive thru.
 
acbytesla said:
I don’t know why people think that SCOTUS is going to make some bizarre ruling to protect Trump. This court has ruled against his arguments of Executive Privilege over and over and over. I don’t trust Thomas or Alito. But I don’t think the Supreme Court will protect Trump.
Click to expand...


Exactly. The court has consistently ruled against Trump and Trump's interests. People believing that the court will save Trump now haven't been paying attention to the court's rulings. They are wrongly assuming that since the court is conservative and since Trump appointed many of the justices, that the court will protect Trump. But being a conservative jurist doesn't imply being a Trumpist, as the court's voting record has already made clear.

I have yet to hear anything even close to a reasonable argument.
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People are blinded by their ideology on the right and on the left.
 
Yeah we got told they wouldn't overturn Roe V Wade as well and we were being unreasonable and dramatic for saying they would over turn it.

But sure this time will be different.
 
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acbytesla said:
BTW, In US v Nixon SCOTUS in an 8 - 0 ruling decided that the President does not have an unlimited right to confidentiality and ordered that the tapes be released to the Watergate Committee.

And this court has used that decision to deny Trump and his allies the claim of Executive Privilege.
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One of the problems is that even though the courts might rule that "Trump has no right to do X....", it still takes time to litigate/appeal things.

For example, Trump's fight to keep his taxes secret. The Supreme court eventually ruled against Trump (allowing the release of his tax returns). It was a reasonable judgement. But, it took years to get there... appeals to lower courts, then the supreme court had to rule on it (which took months). The appeals should have been rejected quickly, and the supreme court shouldn't have even bothered taking the case. (The law was pretty clear on the matter... tax returns "shall" be provided... no big constitutional issues at play.) But the delay benefitted Trump.

I suspect the same thing MIGHT occur here.... Trump found guilty, launches some sort of court motion to prevent incarceration, case gets appealed to higher courts, supreme court says "Ok, we will here the case and rule on it next year". And even if the courts eventually rule that "yes, Trump can be sent to prison", he was left free for the years before the final ruling was provided.
 
Thermal said:
Trump and jail. Two words that will never have "in" between them, except in the pining sense.

The flimsiest of pretexts will be used to not have him in a cell. Anything. Technicalities. Missing procedural form. Whatever. The optics are too awful to lock up one of our presidents.
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Who would think the "optics are too awful"?

The MAGAchud might, but they also think its awful to have Trump indicted in the first place.

Most Democrats certainly wouldn't... they probably see the optics of "nobody is above the law... even an ex-president" as a good thing.
 
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