Donald Trump opposes the special counsel’s request for the Supreme Court to decide right now whether he has any immunity from federal prosecution for alleged crimes he committed while in office, lawyers for the former president told the justices in court papers Wednesday.
Special counsel Jack Smith asked the high court last week to review a lower-court ruling that Trump, as a former president, is not immune from the election subversion criminal case. Smith in his appeal to the justices asked them to take the rare step of reviewing the issue before a federal appeals court in Washington, DC, weighs in.
But Trump, whose legal strategy in the case so far has largely revolved around attempts to delay the proceedings, told the justices that Smith should not be able to leapfrog over the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit to resolve the critical issue.
This is a lose-lose. If this is shot down, it’s just another case of presidents (and former presidents) being above the law. If this goes through, the republican states will use it against democratic candidates.
edit: If you don’t think republican states would abuse this, let me remind you that republicans are still trying to impeach Biden just to retaliate for the Trump impeachments.
Why should a court of law give a shit what Republicans will or won’t do in retaliation for some perceived sleight?
Maybe they shouldn’t, but it’s still a tough situation politically.
Maybe they shouldn’t?! You realize you’re arguing for the law to be applied depending on who it benefits politically, don’t you?
You’re strawmanning me pretty hard (hopefully unintentionally). I’m not arguing for the courts to do anything; my point was that there will be negative consequences no matter what they do.
Your comment was literally arguing exactly that.
I’m going to be overly verbose with you since you appreciate specificity so much.
Edward Teach’s comment:
Edward is implying that the court should ignore the political repercussions of their decision (i.e., “why should [they] care”).
My response:
I am here acknowledging the salience of his point while also being intentionally non-committal. (“Maybe they shouldn’t [care about the consequences]”.) Maybe Edward is right that the supreme court should ignore the political fallout. I then return to my original point that it is a tough situation either way.
Edward Teach’s comment:
Here he is straw manning me because he read too much into my original comment. I never argued that the court should or shouldn’t do anything, only that there will be negative consequences either way. Edward assumed that the purpose behind my comment was to say the supreme court should rule in favor of Trump. This is not the case.
☝️this is you arguing whether the court should or shouldn’t do something.
you can be verbose or succinct; it changes nothing other than the time amount of you waste.
Now you’re just repeating yourself. You didn’t even read the comment, did you? You’re right, this is a waste of time.
Only if the Supreme Court, whose job it is to actually determine what is lawful according US Constitution (and then other federal law and precedent) decide they are not going to do their jobs anymore.
The whole reason Supreme Court justices have appointment for life is so that their decisions can’t be used against them by those in power to punish for a ruling those in power don’t like. Supremes have almost “plot armor” in this regard. What do they have to fear from making a ruling that republicans don’t like?
Their billionaire sugar daddies will dump them?
Allowing our justice system to operate based on perceived political consequences seems like a terrible idea. Republicans will continue to be seditious trash regardless, holding one of them accountable for crimes they committed won’t change that. Their moves should not even factor into what the justice department/courts does or doesn’t do.
Democrats’ guiding principle is “but what might Republicans do?” Context doesn’t change that.
I think people are assuming that I’m recommending a course of action when my entire point is that either scenario will have negative consequences. That being said, I agree with everything you said here.
If not that, then people are confused about what your point was other than to generally be negative.
This whole “don’t hold republicans accountable because they’ll weaponize the courts” is such a meh argument.
They already weaponize the courts.
But so far, without any evidence of wrongdoing against Democrats they try to do this against, they have had zero success.
While there is actual assloads of evidence against people like Trump (and others).
It’ll spend some time and resources from democrats, but it’ll also put some of the worst republicans in jail.
Buddy they’ve had plenty of success. They’ll bury you in paperwork if you stick your neck out. They already paid off the judge, they’re just waiting for you.
I don’t see this as a special concern. They’re going to do this no matter what.
So what you’re saying is, they’ll be insufferable assholes no matter what we do, and we should see to it that a criminal repays society for his crimes.
This has nothing to do with the state cases, this is Federal & dealing with the Insurrection.
If a democratic former president incites an Insurrection &/or steals top secret documents & gives them to our enemies I hope they get prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law as well.
Isn’t this assuming the republicans are operating in good faith? They aren’t. They care more about what they can get away with than whether it’s justified. I’m sure republican states could find other reasons to take Biden off of the ballet come the next election. There seem to be a lot more legal grey areas than we were aware of. (For example, before January 6th, who knew that the vice president could potentially steal an election?)
Treason & Insurrection are literally the only way a US citizen over the age of 35 can be removed from a federal ballot in the USA.
I wouldn’t put it past them to label some Hunter Biden conspiracy theory bs “treason”.
That said, I concede the point that it may not be as easy as I was implying. Or at least I hope its not that easy. Our democracy is looking fragile these days.
This is the exact reason why Treason is defined in the Constitution & has a very, very narrow definition.
I’m willing to be proven wrong since I’m no expert on constitutional law, but treason is constituted by: “levying War against [the United States], or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.” You’re right that the first part is very specific, but that second part about helping the enemies of the republic could be abused.