this post was submitted on 10 Jan 2024
589 points (97.4% liked)

politics

19104 readers
5009 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

  1. Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.

Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.

Example:

  1. Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
  2. Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
  3. No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
  4. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
  5. No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

Register To Vote

Citizenship Resource Center

Congressional Awards Program

Federal Government Agencies

Library of Congress Legislative Resources

The White House

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

News

World News

Business News

Political Discussion

Ask Politics

Military News

Global Politics

Moderate Politics

Progressive Politics

UK Politics

Canadian Politics

Australian Politics

New Zealand Politics

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Former President Trump’s legal team suggested Tuesday that even a president directing SEAL Team Six to kill a political opponent would be an action barred from prosecution given a former executive’s broad immunity to criminal prosecution.

The hypothetical was presented to Trump attorney John Sauer who answered with a “qualified yes” that a former president would be immune from prosecution on that matter or even on selling pardons.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 12 points 10 months ago (1 children)

And many of the document crimes occured after he left office. So they don't have even have these bull crap presidential immunity arguments.

"Former presidents are also immune from any prosecution and allowed to carry out assassinations of political rivals after leaving office"

  • Trump's lawyers, probably
[–] chiliedogg 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Well, he was still President when he stole the documents - that's how he got them.

Most of the charges kinda fall apart of it's determined that Presidents have absolute immunity from prosecution for anything they do in office. It would make his possession of the documents legal.

But the judges yesterday were clearly annoyed that those arguments were being made in the first place. I wouldn't be surprised to see them censure Trump's attorneys after all this is done.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

theft vs possession

I doubt that you could get the argument that current possession of the documents is legal just because having them in the past was legal. A surgeon who possesses cocaine at his house is still going to be in trouble, despite cocaine being legal to have at the surgery table (it's a great tool for eye surgery).

Add on to that the fact that the national archives is the proper owner of the presidential documents once the president is out of office, and that trump lied about having them, lied about returning all of them, etc. etc. etc., and you have crimes that are not related to the actual theft of the documents, but their possession, which are all valid.

[–] chiliedogg 1 points 10 months ago

But if his theft of the documents was legal, then what's to say he didn't secretly declassify the documents without filing the correct paperwork, which, as President, he was legally allowed to do?

If the Courts rule he was above the law, it gets screwy.

But that's all academic, because there's no way the Court is going to rule that Presidents have blanket immunity from prosecution if they aren't removed from office by a Senate conviction. There's literally nothing in the Constitution remotely suggesting that. In fact, it specifically says that criminal conviction is an entirely separate process from political impeachment, and that an officer can be charged criminally separately from an impeachment.

The argument is so absurd his lawyers should be censured for bringing it to the court.