"Complete and total presidential immunity."
What if Trump is right about something?
What if he is right about the most whacked-out thing he has ever said?
Donald Trump wrote in all caps on Truth Social:
A PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES MUST HAVE FULL IMMUNITY, WITHOUT WHICH IT WOULD BE IMPOSSIBLE FOR HIM/HER TO PROPERLY FUNCTION. ANY MISTAKE, EVEN IF WELL INTENDED, WOULD BE MET WITH ALMOST CERTAIN INDICTMENT BY THE OPPOSING PARTY AT TERM END. EVEN EVENTS THAT 'CROSS THE LINE' MUST FALL UNDER TOTAL IMMUNITY, OR IT WILL BE YEARS OF TRAUMA TRYING TO DETERMINE GOOD FROM BAD. THERE MUST BE CERTAINTY.
He is getting more manic. He feels the high of crowd adulation and election victory. He feels the panic of the law closing in. Nikki Haley says it, "Chaos follows him." Of course it does. Trump is a disrupter, shaking up the courts, NATO, taxes, immigration, the federal work force, trade, the GOP, and norms surrounding elections. Chaos is the point. Trump's go-to response to an accusation is to accuse his opponents of the same thing, but worse. His teleprompter speeches added a word: "Bedlam." He repeats the word a dozen times in a single speech. Biden's economic bedlam, his foreign policy bedlam, the urban bedlam. It's a switch from "Sleepy Joe" -- its opposite -- and it's a poker "tell." Trump has become crazy Lear. Trump and his message team know it, so he is accusing Biden of it. Classic Trump.
Trump said the craziest thing of all. Immunity. A president could order the assassination of a political opponent and have immunity. Outrageous!
Tarry a moment. Sometimes even a broken clock is right.
Trump presumes bad faith. Following a term of office, partisans of the other party might -- indeed would -- set about prosecuting the former president. That, too, is a "tell," but it is no secret. Trump says openly and proudly that he would indeed enact retribution. He and his supporters would immediately begin punitive prosecutions. It is contrary to the American tradition of peaceful transfer but previous presidents felt constrained by rules, norms, laws, and opponents.
Not Trump. He would be elected because enough people want someone to break those restraints. Texas has already announced plans to take Biden off the Texas ballot under the 14th Amendment, saying Biden's border policies are tantamount to allowing a foreign invasion. Biden and the mainstream media would argue that the southern border is a political disagreement, not a crime. A border mess contrasts with a president-led fake-elector plot. But a partisan DA with a constituency that loathes Biden could make a criminal claim that Biden was an accessory to civic unrest. There may be some lingering Black-Code or Jim Crow-era laws on the books designed to criminalize "outside agitators" that could be read to claim criminality. Make Biden defend against 10 rural county DAs in each of 20 red states. Take that, Joe Biden!
I distinguish between a prosecution for actual crimes and an abusive, dishonest one. Not everyone would draw the same lines. Republicans are busy re-imagining January 6 and the fake elector plan, calling it a misunderstanding and exaggeration, not a crime. GOP leaders are saying that whatever Trump may have done at the transition should be mumbled about, not prosecuted.
Trump is negotiating. Give me immunity, he argues, so that Biden will get immunity, and he will need it.
I offer this as a heads-up to Democrats. Do not be entirely surprised if a nine-to-zero Supreme Court accepts some version of post-presidential immunity. Trump revealed a great weakness in the structure of American government, and the Supreme Court may feel it needs to repair it. Our republic assumed politicians would admit to facts and would feel shame. The founders recognized that a charismatic autocrat might arise who would not, but they expected others in the Congress and the states to isolate, impeach, and remove that person to protect themselves and the republic. The founders did not anticipate party discipline.
We may need a strong -- if not absolute -- plan of presidential immunity. The Supreme Court may discover it within the penumbras of the Constitution's text. This would be a good time for a unanimous court, not a partisan split. The justices will be thinking ahead to a new MAGA era. Without some kind of presidential immunity, we may get the prosecutorial bedlam we were promised.
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20 comments:
It shouldn’t be that hard to distinguish between actual crimes, such as an attempted coup or the theft of top-secret documents, and stuff an opposing party doesn’t like. The contortions the Republican Party is going through to try and rationalize Trump’s impending nomination is truly pitiful. If the Supreme Court were to take his spurious claims seriously, it would simply be one more nail in our democracy’s coffin.
Trump may be able to shoot someone in the middle of 5th Ave. and not lose any votes, but it’s still against the law and there’s nothing in the Constitution saying the president isn’t subject to it.
Trump is, in my opinion attempting to amend the Constitution through Judicial fiat.And if SCOTUS goes along with him in any way, no matter howcsmall, the Republic is doomed.
Or how about Biden making one more sacrifice for our country and kill Trump? Would the Supreme Court be ok with that? At some point common sense needs to enter the picture, even if Trump and his followers lack common decency.
The best way to avoid a Trump presidency is to defeat him at the election.
This on-the-ballot trickery may be valid and legal, but it’s politically inflammatory, and it’s not what the country needs if we are ever going to get it back together. It would be a great way to start the second Civil War that I hope no one wants.
If that would not put Biden at the same level as Putin, I might agree. If Drumpf is allowed to regain the Ival Office I fear it may become a not uncommon reality.
I'm suprised the prosecution didn't bring up that argument;.that President Obama could have decided Trump was a threat to national security (which is true) and that eliminating Trump would save the country.
You're OK with mob justice? I'm not.
TFG isn't crazy.
The people who support him are, or they're willing to sacrifice this country for personal (or corporate) gain.
“Anonymous” and others may be willing to abandon the rule of law and grovel before Trump for fear of his thugs and their threats of civil war, but let’s hope most Americans would consider that a hill worth dying on.
Trump is a DIC: Disruptor In Chief. If everything was going fine, there would be no need for populist disruption.
But not so much.
Yup, treason is definitely disruptive. LOCK HIM UP!
I posted (inadvertently) as the “Anonymous“ who said he wanted to avoid a second Civil War.
I was not advocating that we avoid the Civil War out of “fear“ of anything. I posted as a patriotic American, who wants to see all of us pull back from the brink of polarization before it rips the country even further apart.
The half of the country in populist revolt against the elites will not accept the denial by those elites of a position on the ballot for Trump. That’s just a fact of our current politics. Biden beating Trump fair and square in an election is the only way to avoid both a second Trump presidency and that Civil War.
I am hoping the Supreme Court will inject some wisdom and stop all of these ballot denial attempts. There are worse things than a second Trump presidency. I hope we don’t get to experience them.
Why on God's green earth are we seriously discussing whether or not to immunize politicians so they don't have to fight criminal charges in court. Putin has immunity; so does MBS in Saudi Arabia. I don't know whether Pakistan's leaders have it, although a lot of them get assassinated (so much for immunity in Pakistan, and with all respect to Benazir Bhutto). If you think about it, a lot of leaders throughout the world have it, for the same reasons Trump argues he should have it. I don't care if President Biden is prosecuted in the future; the risk of his future prosecution is not a reason for the U.S.A. to immunize politicians from having to answer for their crimes. If there is a Biden crime family, go get 'em. Our court system is an important safety valve against the U.S.A. becoming like Lord of the Flies.
Biden beat **45 fair and square in 2020. In the 22 Midterms Trump endorsed Candidates in nearly every State lost bigly. And he started his socalled Campaign facing 91 various counts of a plethora of Felonies, and is still crying unfair and whining about being picked on.
So how is letting him have his way about being on Ballots across the Republic, beating him like a cheap drum and not jailing his Felonious bloated Butt going to keep him from trying the same shoddy srunts just like he did in 2020 ?
Mc, I'm nit either, and caving to his mobs by letting avoid any consequences for his illegal action to avoid disturbing the mob is only guaranteeing they will be back, crazier than ever.
This time, should it come to that, I will oppose any Ambesties, and make sure that we have a more aggressive Attorney General than Merrick Gsrlad. These cases should have been before Juries long before now.
I agree with Mike 110% about all these points. Giving into threats from bullies is ALWAYS the wrong way to go. You'd think that someone like M.T. should understand that based on a certain current war happening in a "holy land."
Before making lame excuses for Trump's revolting base, MT would do well to remember one of their chants: "Jews will not replace us!"
First of all, to clear up some “misconceptions“, when I say “civil war”, I am talking more about the psychic phenomenon of polarization than actual physical violence. Right now, Trump is polling ahead of Biden. Calling all of those potential Trump voters stupid or deplorable is not the path towards changing those numbers; it just contributes to more polarization.
When Trump's chumps threaten civil war, they're talking about physical violence, not psychic phenomenon. Trump is a madman, and those who support him are no better.
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