On the docket today in front of three judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit was the question of whether former presidents can be prosecuted for things they did while in office. The issue at hand is whether Trump can be tried for his attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election, but Trump has also been charged in three other criminal cases: a national case over his mishandling of national security documents, a state case in Georgia for interfering with the 2020 election there, and a state case in New York for paying hush money to adult film actress Stormy Daniels. He is also facing a number of civil cases.
You really had to listen to the oral arguments today to understand just how bad Trump's lawyer's arguments were. (I believe the audio is available on YouTube.) The old legal saying goes: If the facts are on your side, pound on the facts; if the law is on your side, pound on the law; and if neither is on your side, pound on the table. Trump attorney D. John Sauer was pounding on the table, and his increasingly hysterical tone made clear that he knew he was a dead lawyer walking.
Finally, one of the judges referenced the oath the President takes -- "I think it's paradoxical to say that his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed allows him to violate criminal law." Talk about stating the obvious
If Trump’s lawyers are right, then Biden should simply declare Trump a “threat to the Constitution of the United States of America” and order the FBI to arrest and imprison him until each trial begins and lock him up after each trial concludes. I love contemplating the irony of throwing Trump’s sh*t right back in his face even if it never happens.
We forget the precedents for which so many Republicans kiss the fat, diaper-clad posterior.
Putin does not have to face criminal liability for his criminal acts. Neither does Xi. Nor Orban. Nor Erdogan for the thousands crushed to death in earthquakes, in buildings Erdogan's cronies allowed to be built as death traps. Nor the little fat man in North Korea. Nor any dictators, oligarchs, and others who are held as models by our fat, orange cosmeticized thug.
Dark money vulgarity has ruled America so long. Social media pushing hate algorithms has ruled so long. Standardized testers have driven humanities from out of the schools. Republican ideologues on the Supreme have gotten license to let other ideologues dictate themselves to American women. AR-15s rule. So all these Republicans upholding cult leader have totally lost touch with the real America. They know no history. They have no humanities.
We can see them plainly inhabiting their stupidity, hate cultism, perversity.
Sauer’s argument basically is that, unless the Senate convicts the President for actions while president (which has never happened), then the President’s cannot be tried in the criminal courts. This goes against what Trump’s lawyers and Mitch McConnell argued in his last impeachment trial.
I’d like to see a law that all impeachment votes be anonymous so that the threats used to get Republicans to vote against impeachment would have no power. I don’t think that, now that violence against public officials has been encouraged by our former leader, that we can ever return to the times in which that particular type of violence is not a consideration.
Seeing the fat old lifelong loser at his "press conference" afterwards, he was a deflated as a balloon slashed with a kitchen knife. He knows in his heart that this is his last time in the limelight. He's saying the things he always wanted to say to the people who kept him on the other side of the glass all his life, and in so doing the only ones he'll have left on his side are the rest of the Seething Indequates whose anger at the rest of us is born in envy.
In the January 6 committee it was clear that Trump acknowledged he lost and that all 60 court cases challenging fraud did not find fraud as well as his data czar who claimed no fraud in the election. So the evidence shows he was not acting to protect the constitution for the people but for himself. I don’t know where this goes but....Merrick Garland is two years behind. Thanks Heather!
I wish the judges had asked Trump's lawyer if Joe Biden should have full presidential immunity for doing exactly what Trump did to subvert the outcome of the next election should Biden lose (please no!). Would they argue for Biden's right to full immunity if the tables were turned? I think we all know the answer to that question. I would have liked to hear Sauer stumble through his answer.
OMG ! All this MUMBO JUMBO and B.S. ! EVERY last individual participating in this $#!t knows that Trump is guilty as hell ! If it were I or you , we'd a been under the wheels of the bus. Good lord !
If Trump had been president in the era of the Framers, I have no doubt that he would have been found guilty of treason and summarily executed. The fact that we are even discussing sovereign immunity shows how far his clown car has traveled.
“A quick reminder: Impeachment is a political process, not a legal one.”
Impeachment is a job performance evaluation. Nothing more. It is unrelated to the criminal or civil justice system in any way. Conviction means “You’re fired!” Nothing more.
You really had to listen to the oral arguments today to understand just how bad Trump's lawyer's arguments were. (I believe the audio is available on YouTube.) The old legal saying goes: If the facts are on your side, pound on the facts; if the law is on your side, pound on the law; and if neither is on your side, pound on the table. Trump attorney D. John Sauer was pounding on the table, and his increasingly hysterical tone made clear that he knew he was a dead lawyer walking.
Listening to the hearing was so bizarre.
Finally, one of the judges referenced the oath the President takes -- "I think it's paradoxical to say that his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed allows him to violate criminal law." Talk about stating the obvious
If Trump’s lawyers are right, then Biden should simply declare Trump a “threat to the Constitution of the United States of America” and order the FBI to arrest and imprison him until each trial begins and lock him up after each trial concludes. I love contemplating the irony of throwing Trump’s sh*t right back in his face even if it never happens.
The possible scenarios that Jack Smith cited, as well as some posed by the judges, cemented the outrageousness of Trump’s immunity claim.
He’s toast — and knows it. His every utterance is more outlandish than the last. The courts, including the Supreme Court, won’t save him.
But how far will the cult go to protect him?
We forget the precedents for which so many Republicans kiss the fat, diaper-clad posterior.
Putin does not have to face criminal liability for his criminal acts. Neither does Xi. Nor Orban. Nor Erdogan for the thousands crushed to death in earthquakes, in buildings Erdogan's cronies allowed to be built as death traps. Nor the little fat man in North Korea. Nor any dictators, oligarchs, and others who are held as models by our fat, orange cosmeticized thug.
Dark money vulgarity has ruled America so long. Social media pushing hate algorithms has ruled so long. Standardized testers have driven humanities from out of the schools. Republican ideologues on the Supreme have gotten license to let other ideologues dictate themselves to American women. AR-15s rule. So all these Republicans upholding cult leader have totally lost touch with the real America. They know no history. They have no humanities.
We can see them plainly inhabiting their stupidity, hate cultism, perversity.
Sauer’s argument basically is that, unless the Senate convicts the President for actions while president (which has never happened), then the President’s cannot be tried in the criminal courts. This goes against what Trump’s lawyers and Mitch McConnell argued in his last impeachment trial.
I’d like to see a law that all impeachment votes be anonymous so that the threats used to get Republicans to vote against impeachment would have no power. I don’t think that, now that violence against public officials has been encouraged by our former leader, that we can ever return to the times in which that particular type of violence is not a consideration.
Seeing the fat old lifelong loser at his "press conference" afterwards, he was a deflated as a balloon slashed with a kitchen knife. He knows in his heart that this is his last time in the limelight. He's saying the things he always wanted to say to the people who kept him on the other side of the glass all his life, and in so doing the only ones he'll have left on his side are the rest of the Seething Indequates whose anger at the rest of us is born in envy.
In the January 6 committee it was clear that Trump acknowledged he lost and that all 60 court cases challenging fraud did not find fraud as well as his data czar who claimed no fraud in the election. So the evidence shows he was not acting to protect the constitution for the people but for himself. I don’t know where this goes but....Merrick Garland is two years behind. Thanks Heather!
"A president could be impeached simply for watching TV all day,"
He should have been impeached for that one too.
I wish the judges had asked Trump's lawyer if Joe Biden should have full presidential immunity for doing exactly what Trump did to subvert the outcome of the next election should Biden lose (please no!). Would they argue for Biden's right to full immunity if the tables were turned? I think we all know the answer to that question. I would have liked to hear Sauer stumble through his answer.
Can the trial start on March 4 as scheduled, with the given that if SCOTUS rules he's immune the trial ends? Why should justice work on Trump Time?
OMG ! All this MUMBO JUMBO and B.S. ! EVERY last individual participating in this $#!t knows that Trump is guilty as hell ! If it were I or you , we'd a been under the wheels of the bus. Good lord !
A court decision granting Trump immunity would be the next logical step for formalizing the end of calling America "a democracy."
I am astonished that any good legal mind would choose to represent Donald Trump. Does it come down to money over principle?
If Trump had been president in the era of the Framers, I have no doubt that he would have been found guilty of treason and summarily executed. The fact that we are even discussing sovereign immunity shows how far his clown car has traveled.
“A quick reminder: Impeachment is a political process, not a legal one.”
Impeachment is a job performance evaluation. Nothing more. It is unrelated to the criminal or civil justice system in any way. Conviction means “You’re fired!” Nothing more.