The nightmare scenario!
Glenn Kirschner @glennkirschner2:
Morning all. I’ve been waiting for a TRUE constitutional crisis to come into focus. For example, if the Supreme Court ruled a particular Trump executive order was unconstitutional & Trump said, “I don’t care what SCOTUS says, I’m doing it anyway and no one can stop me.”
But I have now come to believe that the DOJ/OLC memo saying you can’t indict a criminal president is a virtual “How To” manuel for a constitution crisis - a kind of “Constitutional Crisis for Dummies.” Here’s why...
In its zeal to protect the head of the executive branch, the DOJ Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) decided to issue an opinion saying it’s unconstitutional to indict a sitting president regardless of the nature or number of crimes he commits while serving as president
and regardless of the crimes he committed to STEAL the presidency in the first instance. Let’s recall that the president is the boss of the DOJ. So is it any surprise that the DOJ drafted a memo saying, ‘our boss can’t be indicted, he’s above the law’?
Now, the Constitution does not say you can’t indict criminal president. No law/statute says it and no court has ever issued an opinion saying a criminal president can not be indicted for his crimes. We have come to learn that
this criminal president can also not be impeached AND removed from office because the Republicans in the Senate have proven, time and again, that they will ignore/endure (thereby enabling and encouraging) every abuse of office and every crime by Trump.
So Trump is un-prosecutable and un-removable from office even if the House impeaches him. He is, in reality, above the law. A king. Because he can’t be prosecuted and can’t be removed via a Senate trial, Trump can do anything he wants. He can put kids in cages,
he can strike nefarious deals with Turkey that green-lights the mass murder of our Kurdish allies, he can pollute the planet to death. Not only can Trump steal the 2020 election, which he is attempting to do at the moment with both guns blazing,
he can CANCEL the 2020 election altogether. If he cancels the upcoming election, he can not be prosecuted for it and he won’t be held accountable for it by being removed from office by the Senate Republicans. How do we know this? Well, what have we seen in recent days?
When reporters ask Senate Republicans if it’s OK for Trump to ask foreign countries to gin up investigations of his political opponents they can’t even bring themselves to say “NO!”
So, going back to the concept of a constitutional crisis:
if the president can be neither prosecuted nor removed from office via impeachment in the House AND conviction in the Senate, then he can commit every manner of abuse, crime & atrocity, including literally shooting someone on 5th Avenue & there’s NOTHING we can do about it.
Therefore, given the reality of the Republicans walking away from their constitutional duties, the OLC memo prohibiting Trump’s prosecution IS the constitutional crime. I have an idea . . . Let’s change that.
[twitter.com]
How do you get to "#9 he can cancel the election altogether"? I'm sure he would like to, but that would be beyond the pale even for this Court.
I think the theory is that with a complicit McConnell/Senate there's nothing stopping him and it could come down to the military having to decide where are their loyalties (now that we're a banana republic)!
@jerry99 I apologize, first of all I didn't realize you were quoting someone else. I took it as your own theory.
The Republicans must maintain their facade of confidence throughout the elections. Afterwards, though, look for Trump to claim there was "massive voter fraud" and "a rigged election", "illegal voters" and all the reasons he claims he lost the popular vote in '16 despite the lack of any evidence for these. The crisis would come if he refused to step down.
Imagine Federal marshals removing him from the Oval Office...
Give this a year and see what is happening. Trump's current actions are to defy and setup a plan where he does not have to comply in any way and possibly not even have to leave office. What is Trump doing as POTUS? He is setting out to investigate everyone before him. He will get rid of that corruption. This is why he will claim he needs to stay and his supporters will believe him. What he is doing is not a new plan. Others have used it before but Americans are blind and they say "it could not happen here." It is in the works right now. Power corrupts!