But we’re facing extreme circumstances
Giuliani thinks Trump could shoot someone dead in the Oval Office but still not be prosecuted.
“In no case can he be subpoenaed or indicted,” Rudy Giuliani told HuffPost Sunday, claiming a president’s constitutional powers are that broad. “I don’t know how you can indict while he’s in office. No matter what it is.”
Giuliani said impeachment was the initial remedy for a president’s illegal behavior ― even in the extreme hypothetical case of Trump having shot former FBI Director James Comey to end the Russia investigation rather than just firing him.
“If he shot James Comey, he’d be impeached the next day,” Giuliani said. “Impeach him, and then you can do whatever you want to do to him.”
Why stop there? If Giuliani is right, Trump could also take a machine gun and ammo and shoot as many people as he had time and energy for.
Norm Eisen, the White House ethics lawyer under President Barack Obama and now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said the silliness of Giuliani’s claim illustrates how mistaken Trump’s lawyers are about presidential power.
“A president could not be prosecuted for murder? Really?” he said. “It is one of many absurd positions that follow from their argument. It is self-evidently wrong.”
Eisen and other legal scholars have concluded that the constitution offers no blanket protection for a president from criminal prosecution. “The foundation of America is that no person is above the law,” he said. “A president can under extreme circumstances be indicted, but we’re facing extreme circumstances.”
Giuliani’s comments came a day after The New York Times revealed that Trump’s lawyers in January made their case to special counsel Robert Mueller that Trump could not possibly have obstructed justice because he has the ability to shut down any investigation at any time.
“He could, if he wished, terminate the inquiry, or even exercise his power to pardon if he so desired,” Jay Sekulow and John Dowd wrote in a 20-page letter. Dowd has since left Trump’s legal team, replaced by Giuliani.
But the legal philosophy remains as cracked as ever.
I wonder if any one would have been saying that if Clinton had been elected? Oh, silly me, my bad. I know what they’d be saying – Lock her up. She wouldn’t even have to do anything, because the president’s powers are only that broad when Republican presidents are in office. (That’s in the constitution, you know – written personally in the handwriting of James Madison himself, and signed by Benjamin Franklin and John Adams just to make sure everyone understood).
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As often in these cases let me preface this: I am not an American.
But, first, it seems to me that this attitude that once a president / chancellor / prime minister is elected they get to do whatever they want, with no protections in place for anybody and anything, because they got elected and you have got to respect the will of the majority, is distressingly common in many countries. Not dominant perhaps, but held by significant numbers of people.
Second, unfortunately in practice it doesn’t seem to matter what “other legal scholars have concluded”, or my home country would still have the Weimar constitution and Octavius wouldn’t have become Imperator Caesar Divi Filius Augustus. In any country, at any time, if a sufficient number of influential people have decided that the law doesn’t matter anymore it does not matter anymore. “That cannot happen here because our constitution doesn’t allow it” should be listed on official lists of Famous Last Words.
Under the British-Australian-NZ and I think Canadian systems, a Prime Minister Trump would lose his majority in the Lower House on a motion of No Confidence, and his government would fall. The Queen or her representative would then call a fresh election.
In 1787, the US Constitution was probably the best in the English-speaking world. But Trump is now proving it otherwise.. ,
Alex SL:
Trump did not get elected by the will of the majority, but by a very vocal minority. He got fewer votes than his opponent. We are being told we must respect the will of a minority, and a minority who believes those who disagree with them are not fully human.
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This. I wish that, as a partial remedy to the misperception that he was actually elected, the media would start appending the phrase “who lost the popular vote” to Trump’s name.
Omar @4,
Not if the Republican caucus in this hypothetical American House of Commons was comparable to the current GOP caucus in either house of Congress. Consider that the defection of a couple dozen House members and 18 Senators would be enough to impeach and remove Trump, replacing him with the perhaps unloved but solidly conservative Pence. It doesn’t happen because the voters don’t want it to happen. The problem is not really the mechanics of the system, it’s the electorate.
Now, I could be persuaded that, in a Westminster system, Donald Trump would never have become GOP leader, because generally speaking the caucus plays a large role in selecting the leader and usually has to have some confidence in the leader’s actual management skills as opposed to simply his or her ability to win elections. I think I’ve even made that claim myself in the past. But then again, Doug Ford may be about to become premier of Ontario, so I’m not as confident about that as I used to be.
SM:
Quite right there. On the day they arrive to drag Trump kicking and screaming out of the White House, every Homer J Simpson in America will be there to help barricade him in.
(Come to think of it, there’s an episode or two [hundred] of The Simpsons in that.)
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