Renzatic on 6/10/2020 at 17:49
Quote Posted by Gryzemuis
FYI, Trump will never be thrown in jail. That's not the American way. He won't stand trial. He won't be convicted. He won't even be indicted. Don't get your hopes up.
I doubt he'll ever be brought up on federal charges, but SDNY has been chomping at the bit to get at him. They're just biding they're time until he's no longer president.
heywood on 6/10/2020 at 18:06
SDNY is federal.
I'm also skeptical that he'll face criminal charges, but he'll be fending off civil suits for the rest of his life.
demagogue on 7/10/2020 at 06:48
Why wouldn't he face criminal charges?
I think you have to look at the context. Something like dozens of people inside the justice department wrote a letter about the corruption within their own department. So I have to imagine as soon as this admin is out of power, the justice dept. will be under a lot of pressure to demonstrate that it's still a credible independent institution. And the new AG will be under a lot of pressure to send that message, just on institutional grounds. The prosecutors too need to show that they're independent of politics. So having actual slum dunk criminal charges ignored for political reasons would also be an attack on their institutional credibility. So I think they'd be under pressure to prosecute for that reason too.
I mean, I think people underestimate the situation we find ourselves in. In a lot of past corruption cases, things like the Iran-Contra scandal or Whitewater or Blackwater, there was honestly some ambiguity in the law, a lot of it is purely political and they weren't so clearly a criminal matter you could attach a criminal charge to... That doesn't apply here. Trump has unambiguously obstructed justice to the very letter of the law over multiple, possibly dozens of counts. In some respects this is the flip side of the Hillary emails situation. In the Hillary email situation, you just can't wring criminal charges, much less a conviction, out of it no matter how many ways you squeeze and spin the facts. In the Trump obstruction case, you just can't avoid a slam dunk criminal conviction scenario out of it no matter how you squeeze and spin the facts. And for prosecutors to not prosecute something that unambiguous is ... like I said, they're going to be under tremendous institutional pressure to say 1+1=2. This isn't anything like past ambiguous cases everyone may be thinking about.
Also looking at history. If you read the books, it was clear that Nixon would have been prosecuted except for Ford's pardon. So I think it's going to come down to Trump would have to win the next election and then Pence win the election after that, or he has to be impeached and Pence becomes president as in Nixon's case. (Edit: I mean that mutatis mutandis. Nixon resigned so Ford could become president and pardon him. Well that's an option Trump has too, but also unlikely because I doubt a narcissist could bring himself to that.) I think that's more unlikely than not to happen, and I think that's the only available exit strategy he has.
Well, that said, there's one more exit strategy, and I actually think this is the likely one. He just leaves the US and lives in a country without an extradition treaty after he loses the election but before his term is officially done, I'm imagining somewhere in East Europe or Russia because where else. It already gives me a wry smile to think about, because I think that's really the most likely end game here, when push comes to shove, and I can just imagine his followers being so caught off guard, and I can imagine how little he cares or even fathoms what people will think or what it does to the US or the GOP. The only thing he can even fathom is self-preservation.
So anyway, I think criminal prosecutions are assured, and I expect he's going into exile to avoid them.
I guess let's see who wins this prediction.
Sulphur on 7/10/2020 at 06:59
Provided he lives to see all of this through, of course. I think your second exit strategy is the most likely, to be honest. Trump's not going to want to get batted around any of these proceedings, so he'll just get out of dodge and call everyone else who got dragged under his wake suckers.
Starker on 7/10/2020 at 07:30
Can't he just pardon himself, though? Or resign and have Pence pardon him? Probably his ego won't allow it, though, until it's too late.
Pyrian on 7/10/2020 at 12:55
I think he can't pardon himself, but resigning and having Pence pardon him might work? Worked for Nixon, after all. Seems like kind of a big loophole, honestly.
Nicker on 7/10/2020 at 13:25
Trump (
https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2020/10/06/trump-kills-stimulus-talks/) holds a gun to the heads of desperate Americans.
Quote:
In a series of tweets less than 24 hours after he was released from a hospital, Trump accused Pelosi of failing to negotiate in good faith, after she rejected an opening bid from Mnuchin in their latest round of talks.
“I have instructed my representatives to stop negotiating until after the election when, immediately after I win, we will pass a major Stimulus Bill that focuses on hardworking Americans and Small Business,”
Vote for me or die on the streets of your Democrat run cities, peasants.
demagogue on 7/10/2020 at 13:30
FYI Trump already gave a (
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-says-he-has-absolute-right-to-pardon-himself-of-federal-crimes-but-denies-any-wrongdoing/2018/06/04/3d78348c-67dd-11e8-bea7-c8eb28bc52b1_story.html) statement in 2018 where he claimed the power to pardon himself, and basically every sane lawyer laughed the idea out the window.
I think resigning would be literally cognitively impossible for him. It would mean admitting he was less than the greatest president in US history, and he just can't do it. If he could, then there are 10,000s of past incidents that wouldn't make any sense. At least I don't think he could do it under normal circumstances. If he felt sure to be arrested, I could imagine him playing the role of a victim of political persecution and feeling forced to take steps to protect himself that look a lot like resigning and installing Pence to pardon him... I don't think he'd want to actually call it "resigning" though or say anything like Nixon or LBJ did about doing what was best for the country, but he'd be speaking like a persecuted victim doing what has to be done to stop the out-of-control Dems. That's just my sense of it.
Gryzemuis on 7/10/2020 at 13:52
"Lock her up". Did that happen yet ? Is Hillary in jail ? Nope.
Why ? Trump promised he would lock her up, didn't he ? But he hasn't even tried. Politicians don't persecute other politicians. They maybe threaten sometimes. But only do that to have a direct political impact. Weaken your opponent. Beat her or him in elections. But once a politician isn't a threat to you anymore, nobody cares. Is Kissinger in jail yet ? Has he been indicted for killing a few thousands innocent Cambodians yet ?
Trump is not going to jail. If he loses the upcoming elections, they are gonna allow him to sit in his Trump tower, enjoy his golden toilet, and brag on Twitter how he was the greatest president that ever lived. And a few years later he'll be dead and forgotten.
heywood on 7/10/2020 at 14:36
@dema
If a Biden administration tries to revisit Mueller's report and indict Trump on obstruction, it's going to look like revenge politics to a lot of people. One side sees an obvious obstruction charge, the other side sees a chief executive lawfully directing his executive branch to fend off a politically motivated coup attempt by a party who wouldn't accept the election results. I know you probably think the latter is ridiculous, but that's how 45% of the country sees it. On top of that, Trump was already impeached and acquitted. Going after him again on the same basis smells like double jeopardy.
If Biden wins, he'll have to decide whether it's better for the country in the long term to put Trump in the past and move on, or try to hold Trump accountable for the sake of precedent. It's a tough call. There is a real risk that we're entering a destructive spiral of avenging prior grievances, potentially the same sort of thing that caused the troubles in N. Ireland and the wars in the Balkan peninsula. There's also a risk that if we don't hold Trump accountable, we set a precedent that Presidents are above the law and it potentially leads to authoritarianism. If Biden's campaign message is to be believed, he will prioritize moving on and trying to build some national unity over holding Trump accountable. I believe him. If it was Hillary, she'd go for the jugular, but Biden isn't like that.
On the other hand, if SDNY can get Trump on tax evasion or campaign finance violations, or something that hasn't already been hashed out, then I don't think a Biden administration would do anything to stop that.