Another Reminder
Heads he wins, tails you lose.
Via the NYT (Trump’s Argument for Immunity in 2024 Is the Opposite of His Stance in 2021):
at that February 2021 trial, Mr. Trump, through a different set of lawyers, made the opposite claim: He argued that the Senate could not convict him because he was already out of office, while pointing to the criminal justice system as the legitimate remaining way to seek accountability.
“After he is out of office,” Bruce Castor, one of the impeachment lawyers, said, “you go and arrest him.”
Note to anyone reading this that the current argument being made by Trump’s attorneys is that he is immune from prosecution precisely because he wasn’t impeached and removed by the Senate.
It feels like we are going headlong toward possibly re-electing someone who has clear authoritarian goals based on the same kind of logic that would state that you can’t convict a guy who murdered his parents because, after all, he’s an orphan.
It doesn’t really matter to the MAGAs what kind of grotesque inconsistencies Trump spouts. They’ll either rationalize them or ignore them.
@CSK: Of course. MAGA is as MAGA does.
It matters to me. It will matter to history. It certainly matters to our collective fate.
@Steven L. Taylor:
Absolutely.
@Steven L. Taylor:
Contrary to prevailing evidence, I still believe that what will matter to history still matters to some number of Trump’s GOP enablers.
Trump and his cult are a lost cause. But, seek out any Republicans who care about their legacy and pound them on the hypocrisy relentlessly until November. Start with McConnell. Even if no one is swayed to turn on MAGA, it will feel good.
I had a thought last night as I was falling asleep – I may have heard this elsewhere but I can’t recall.
Could the Court rule that since the question of immunity hangs on whether a specific act is public or private, that no criminal case can be brought until the act in question is determined to be private and not within the scope of presidential responsibility.
Therefore, no current case can go through until a determination of whether the specific issue is public or private has been made.
That would shut down all prosecution against Trump, without giving blanket immunity to the President , yes?
The immutable and absolute truth as handed out by God Himself can change at God’s Own Whim, as long as it benefits his Chosen Lardass.
I mean, how else is He going to destroy America?
@Kathy:
This may answer your question:
http://www.time.com/6972021/donald-trump-2024-election-interview/
Straight from the horse’s ass.
Congress is seated on Jan 3, correct? So if Democrats run the table in Congress – even if they lose the EC! – does anything prevent them from passing a bill that would enact Amdt 14 on Trump for his actions on Jan 6? Tuck it right into the SCOTUS ruling and voila he can’t be seated. Whoopsies. The VP-elect then becomes president, and Trump is discarded like the moldy diaper he is.
Idle thoughts. This of course would be the nuclear option, and it would encourage future presidents who leave office with their own party in power (pre- or post-seating) to pull the same shenanigans (even extending to VP of they want to get dirty). But, you know, speculation.
The best part is the presumption that the career government functionaries will all pledge their allegiance to Trump. Not unlike how the bureaucrats of the Shah’s Iran were quick to swear allegiance to the Ayatollah in ’79.
Those DOJ lawyers got mortgages, you know. And will quickly move to save their phoney baloney jobs if Trump is elected.
Although apparently, the talk on the Washington cocktail circuit is about fleeing with their illicit gains.
This is just a public service announcement.
Accusing a political candidate of being “authoritarian” while your side is trying to put him in prison makes you sound ridiculous to ordinary people.
@TheRyGuy:
Trump is putting himself in prison because he’s a criminal. You support him because you’re a POS. I hope that clarifies things for you.
Trump lied, stop the presses. By which I mean to point to a real issue. I have some, albeit limited, sympathy for a press trying to deal with a candidate, and a party, that have normalized lying.
@TheRyGuy:
Complaining about Trump being threatened with prison when he has made throwing his political rivals in prison a rallying cry since he started running for office makes you sound ridiculous to ordinary people. (edited for clarity)
@JKB:
Yes, the entire DOJ operation is a ‘phoney baloney’ operation
If We The People elect a guy openly declaring himself above the law POTUS I’m not going to blame the courts for that. Almost don’t blame the Justices for waiting until that decision has been made before they act either. They cross this guy and we elect him? They would be the first to feel his wrath…which would have few if any limits.
I may have abandoned myself to cynicism, but it’s to the point I want the issue of immunity, and the issue of his lawyers claiming the right to assassinate political opponents, unresolved and thereby front and center in this election.
@JKB: Wait until you read about Project 2025. The plan is not to persuade the leaders to go Trump’s way – the plan is to remove those people from government service and replace them with Trump loyalists.
Trump feels like his big mistake was being too nice to dissenters during his first term. He won’t make that mistake again.
Worship Trump or enter the Gulag.