Divine right of mob bosses
Maybe it wasn’t such a great idea to set up a system in which the top boss can never be held to account because the top boss is the top boss. Why? Because even the top boss is just another human, and humans can do bad things. We need to be able to hold them to account, for our own protection. We can’t just assume they won’t exploit the top job to rob us blind and get away with it.
Lawyers for former President Donald Trump have asked a federal appeals court to throw out a case alleging interference in the 2020 election, arguing that he is immune from prosecution.
Like that. There shouldn’t be such a thing. People shouldn’t be immune from prosecution just because they were once top boss. Trump is a good illustration of that because he did all kinds of bad shit to get elected and then lots more bad shit in office and then even more bad shit after he was thrown out of office. He’s one of the last people on the planet who should be immune from prosecution.
I remember during the Clinton administration the court ruled that he was not immune. That was from a civil case, but I imagine it is the same precedent. Screechy might be able to tell us more. (And he was a sitting president at the time.)
Of course, Clinton was a Democrat.
At the time of Nixon and his Watergate, it was commonly asserted that the President is not and cannot be, above the law. As for Nixon, so for Trump: unless of course a divine pardon has been issued by the Almighty on High, aimed at all of his fans in the Bible Belt.
Unfortunately not “as for Nixon, so for Trump” at all. Different Supreme Court, different Congress. Radically different.
I remember in the lead-up to 2016 when Trump supporters were badmouthing Clinton with the phrase “If anyone else did what she did, they’d be in jail.” Now we have Trump’s own lawyers arguing that it’s okay because he specifically did it, but anyone else would be okay to prosecute.
I still naively believe that any government that claims to be a democracy, or “of by and for the people” should be especially stringent in prosecuting leaders who abuse their power. There should be no exemptions for position, locally or nationally. It’s in the US Constitution, Article 1, Section 9, Clause 8 – Titles of nobility. Granting presidents this kind of immunity is the equivalent of granting them nobility.
Or even kingship.
OB @#3:
Different (stacked) Supreme Court; different Congress. But not different ‘rule of law’ principle. Trump’s present troubles arise from the legal situation described by the eminent British jurist Lord Denning, who said (after Thomas Fuller 300+ years before him) “To every subject of this land, however powerful, I would use Thomas Fuller’s words over three hundred years ago, ‘Be ye never so high, the law is above you.’” That was in a High Court ruling against the British Attorney-General in January 1977.
In a democracy, nobody can be above the law; not even a British monarch, an American President, or other head of state. When someone like Vlad Putin (easily confused with Vlad Dracula, I know) tries it on, civil war is the likely result.
Arguably, Trump and his acolytes have brought the America of today closer to Civil War #2 than at any time since the start of Civil War #1 in 1861.
Here I stand. ;-)
https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780191826719.001.0001/q-oro-ed4-00003551
Even this Supreme Court has an instinct for self-preservation. If the Court allows absolute immunity, there goes the prerogative of the Supreme Court as the final arbiter of the Constitution, and there goes the rule of law. Trump’s argument that he is absolutely immune from criminal prosecution for any acts committed while he was president is an utterly absurd argument. The history of monarchies, from whom the various colonists fled, led the establishers of the Constitution to form a democratic government. No more kings; no divine right of kings. The structure of the Constitution itself militates against any notion of absolute immunity. The checks and balances purposely placed in the Constitution bespeak a limited executive power, not an unlimited one. The plain language of the Constitution also demonstrates that there is no such thing as absolute presidential immunity from criminal prosecution. It was disappointing that SCOTUS did not accept the Special Counsel’s petition for direct certiorari, and to rule immediately and decisively against DJT’s claim of absolute immunity, but it’s not necessarily a bad thing that they decided to let the DC Circuit Court of Appeals rule first. The DC Circuit is moving expeditiously, and the SCOTUS will receive a petition for certiorari from DJT in due course. The March trial date may not hold, but there will still be time for a trial before the election, once SCOTUS smacks down DJT’s claim of absolute immunity. Which I have every confidence that they will, even these Supreme Court justices.