All Things Trump

[rainbow]

Only in shithole countries, where some people are above the law. This does not apply to the civilised world.

Not sure what you're so upset about, but lots of countries afford legal protections for their government officials and leaders.

I'm not upset as I don't live in a country that protects its corrupt, incompetent leaders.
You are the one that has to learn to cope.

It's no big deal. What country do you live in?

I would tell you if it was any of your business to know.





It isn't

[Forty Two]

A sitting President cannot be indicted for a crime.

So Giuliani and others have said. They are expressing opinions, not describing a fact.

The US Supreme Court has not ruled on this precise question, but has twice rejected presidents' attempts to claim immunity from personal legal liability while in office. In United States v. Nixon it rejected Nixon's assertion that the president had 'absolute, unqualified Presidential privilege of immunity from judicial process under all circumstances.' In Clinton v. Jones it rejected Clinton's claim of presidential immunity from private legal actions.

It's not hard to envisage a future case before the US Supreme Court in which Trump asserts that as sitting president he's above the law--cannot be indicted for a crime. At that point the issue will be decided, but not before.

All good points, but first, civil liability is different than indictment for crime. I referred only to indictment for crime. Also, there is immunity for private civil actions arising out of their duties. The Clinton aspect was limited to actions that were not part of his duties as President, and I think Trump could be sued for sexual harassment, too.

As Alexander Hamilton wrote, "The President of the United States would be liable to be impeached, tried, and, upon conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes or misdemeanors, removed from office; and would afterwards be liable to prosecution and punishment in the ordinary course of law." And Justice Joseph Story wrote, "The president cannot, therefore, be liable to arrest, imprisonment, or detention, while he is in the discharge of the duties of his office..." 3 Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, § 1563 (Boston, Hilliard, Gary & Co. 1833).

President John Adams and Senator (later Chief Justice) Oliver Ellsworth. A senator in conversation with them about presidential prosecutability asserted that the President was not above the laws, to which they replied that "[y]ou could only impeach himand no other process [w]hatever lay against him." But then, the senator pointed out, a President committing murder on the streets could only be removed by impeachment. True, acknowledged Adams and Ellsworth, but "[w]hen he is no longer President, [y]ou can indict him." 9 The Diary of William Maclay and other Notes on Senate Debates 168 (Kenneth R. Bowling & Helen E. Veit eds., 1988). http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/ ... fss_papers and http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/ ... fss_papers

Constitutional issues in the US are rarely 100%. And, you are correct that SCOTUS has not decided the issue, and it's an argument. But, the argument that the President can be indicted for crime while in office (as opposed to having indictments held until he is impeached or left office) hasn't been set out well, in my view.

[Forty Two]

Only in shithole countries, where some people are above the law. This does not apply to the civilised world.

Not sure what you're so upset about, but lots of countries afford legal protections for their government officials and leaders.

I'm not upset as I don't live in a country that protects its corrupt, incompetent leaders.
You are the one that has to learn to cope.

It's no big deal. What country do you live in?

I would tell you if it was any of your business to know.





It isn't

Well, your profile says "Africa," and I'm not going to test your claim against every country in that continent.

[L'Emmerdeur]

All good points, but first, civil liability is different than indictment for crime. I referred only to indictment for crime.

The US Constitution doesn't give the president immunity from criminal prosecution. Absent such constitutional immunity, I believe it could only be bestowed by a federal statute passed by Congress or a Supreme Court decision, neither of which exists.

Also, there is immunity for private civil actions arising out of their duties. The Clinton aspect was limited to actions that were not part of his duties as President, and I think Trump could be sued for sexual harassment, too.

I agree.

As Alexander Hamilton wrote, "The President of the United States would be liable to be impeached, tried, and, upon conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes or misdemeanors, removed from office; and would afterwards be liable to prosecution and punishment in the ordinary course of law." And Justice Joseph Story wrote, "The president cannot, therefore, be liable to arrest, imprisonment, or detention, while he is in the discharge of the duties of his office..." 3 Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, § 1563 (Boston, Hilliard, Gary & Co. 1833).

President John Adams and Senator (later Chief Justice) Oliver Ellsworth. A senator in conversation with them about presidential prosecutability asserted that the President was not above the laws, to which they replied that "[y]ou could only impeach himand no other process [w]hatever lay against him." But then, the senator pointed out, a President committing murder on the streets could only be removed by impeachment. True, acknowledged Adams and Ellsworth, but "[w]hen he is no longer President, [y]ou can indict him." 9 The Diary of William Maclay and other Notes on Senate Debates 168 (Kenneth R. Bowling & Helen E. Veit eds., 1988). http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/ ... fss_papers and http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/ ... fss_papers

Constitutional issues in the US are rarely 100%. And, you are correct that SCOTUS has not decided the issue, and it's an argument. But, the argument that the President can be indicted for crime while in office (as opposed to having indictments held until he is impeached or left office) hasn't been set out well, in my view.

While the Supreme Court might use sources like this to inform its decision should the question come before it, they carry no weight in regard to whether the statement 'A sitting President cannot be indicted for a crime' is factual. It is not a factual statement.

[Tero]

Pussy grabbing is not criminal?

[L'Emmerdeur]

When you have a narcissistic grifter holding the highest office in the US who distrusts the established intelligence channels and prefers to get his information from Bullshit Mountain, lies and fraudulent conspiracy theories are ascendant.

Trigger Warning!!!1! :

'Trump, Fox News, and Twitter have created a dangerous conspiracy theory loop'

Late on Tuesday, President Trump tweeted something that’s embarrassing even by his standards: an unfounded conspiracy theory that originated in some of the internet’s worst “fake news” corners.

“Strzok-Page, the incompetent & corrupt FBI lovers, have texts referring to a counter-intelligence operation into the Trump Campaign dating way back to December, 2015,” the president wrote. “SPYGATE is in full force!”

The supposed source for this claim is text messages between two FBI employees, Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, who were having an affair during the 2016 campaign. Their text messages reveal that they were openly hostile to Trump and supportive of Hillary Clinton.

The problem is that, as far as we know, none of those texts mentioned anything about there being a counterintelligence operation against the Trump campaign as early as December 2015. So where the hell did the president come up with that idea?

ThinkProgress’s Judd Legum did some sleuthing and seems to have pieced together the series of events that led to this tweet. It goes roughly like this:

1. On Monday afternoon, an anonymous Twitter account notes that Page texted Strzok in December 2015 about “oconus lures,” which in FBI parlance means intelligence operations aimed at arresting someone outside the continental United States. The texts do not mention Trump at all, and likely had nothing to do with him, since the FBI’s investigation into Trump didn’t open until July 2016. That didn’t stop the anonymous Twitter user from speculating that this might be “an admission that the FBI wanted to run a baited Sting Op using foreign agents against Trump.”
2. Gateway Pundit, a pro-Trump blog with very low editorial standards but a surprisingly wide readership on the right, picks up the tweet in a Monday article titled “Breaking: Senate releases unredacted texts showing FBI initiated MULTIPLE SPIES in Trump campaign in December 2015.”
3. By Tuesday evening, the story has spread to Fox. At 7:22 pm, Fox Business host Lou Dobbs tweets about the oconus lures texts.
4. At 8:37 pm on Tuesday, Trump sends his tweet about the conspiracy theory.
5. About an hour later, Fox News host Laura Ingraham says on air that “when you read those texts, it certainly looks like they [the FBI] were trying to put more lures into the campaign in December 2015.” Republican Rep. Ron DeSantis, one of her panelists, agrees with Ingraham’s interpretation, saying that it is now “clear” that the FBI investigation into Trump started earlier than July 2016.

So what happened, it seems, is that a conspiratorial interpretation of texts between two FBI employees, one entirely unfounded in the actual evidence, got laundered from the fringe right-wing media to the right-wing mainstream through Fox News personalities — and eventually reached up to a member of Congress and the president of the United States.

This says something profound about the way the country is broken today — about how Trump and the conservative media have combined forces to warp the way millions of Americans understand the world around them.

...

Since the president watches Fox, this risks generating a profoundly vicious cycle. Fox picks up on some random internet rumor, the president picks it up from Fox, and then Fox and other right-wing outlets leap to defend what the president tweeted, which only reinforces Trump's sense that he's right.

Between the conservative media and the president, Republican voters end up with an entirely skewed picture of reality -- one in which the FBI has been plotting against Trump since December 2015.

The worst part is that it's not at all clear how to stop this. Research shows that once conspiracy theories are embedded in people's minds, they're nearly impossible to dislodge.

[Tero]

Trump economy is a gig economy
https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... statistics

[Seabass]

When you have a narcissistic grifter holding the highest office in the US who distrusts the established intelligence channels and prefers to get his information from Bullshit Mountain, lies and fraudulent conspiracy theories are ascendant.

Trigger Warning!!!1! :

'Trump, Fox News, and Twitter have created a dangerous conspiracy theory loop'

Late on Tuesday, President Trump tweeted something that’s embarrassing even by his standards: an unfounded conspiracy theory that originated in some of the internet’s worst “fake news” corners.

“Strzok-Page, the incompetent & corrupt FBI lovers, have texts referring to a counter-intelligence operation into the Trump Campaign dating way back to December, 2015,” the president wrote. “SPYGATE is in full force!”

The supposed source for this claim is text messages between two FBI employees, Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, who were having an affair during the 2016 campaign. Their text messages reveal that they were openly hostile to Trump and supportive of Hillary Clinton.

The problem is that, as far as we know, none of those texts mentioned anything about there being a counterintelligence operation against the Trump campaign as early as December 2015. So where the hell did the president come up with that idea?

ThinkProgress’s Judd Legum did some sleuthing and seems to have pieced together the series of events that led to this tweet. It goes roughly like this:

1. On Monday afternoon, an anonymous Twitter account notes that Page texted Strzok in December 2015 about “oconus lures,” which in FBI parlance means intelligence operations aimed at arresting someone outside the continental United States. The texts do not mention Trump at all, and likely had nothing to do with him, since the FBI’s investigation into Trump didn’t open until July 2016. That didn’t stop the anonymous Twitter user from speculating that this might be “an admission that the FBI wanted to run a baited Sting Op using foreign agents against Trump.”
2. Gateway Pundit, a pro-Trump blog with very low editorial standards but a surprisingly wide readership on the right, picks up the tweet in a Monday article titled “Breaking: Senate releases unredacted texts showing FBI initiated MULTIPLE SPIES in Trump campaign in December 2015.”
3. By Tuesday evening, the story has spread to Fox. At 7:22 pm, Fox Business host Lou Dobbs tweets about the oconus lures texts.
4. At 8:37 pm on Tuesday, Trump sends his tweet about the conspiracy theory.
5. About an hour later, Fox News host Laura Ingraham says on air that “when you read those texts, it certainly looks like they [the FBI] were trying to put more lures into the campaign in December 2015.” Republican Rep. Ron DeSantis, one of her panelists, agrees with Ingraham’s interpretation, saying that it is now “clear” that the FBI investigation into Trump started earlier than July 2016.

So what happened, it seems, is that a conspiratorial interpretation of texts between two FBI employees, one entirely unfounded in the actual evidence, got laundered from the fringe right-wing media to the right-wing mainstream through Fox News personalities — and eventually reached up to a member of Congress and the president of the United States.

This says something profound about the way the country is broken today — about how Trump and the conservative media have combined forces to warp the way millions of Americans understand the world around them.

...

Since the president watches Fox, this risks generating a profoundly vicious cycle. Fox picks up on some random internet rumor, the president picks it up from Fox, and then Fox and other right-wing outlets leap to defend what the president tweeted, which only reinforces Trump's sense that he's right.

Between the conservative media and the president, Republican voters end up with an entirely skewed picture of reality -- one in which the FBI has been plotting against Trump since December 2015.

The worst part is that it's not at all clear how to stop this. Research shows that once conspiracy theories are embedded in people's minds, they're nearly impossible to dislodge.

Oy vey. America is doomed. Doomed by stupidity. Republican stupidity.

[Tero]

If enough people sue Trump, will he quit and move to Australia?
https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/07/politics ... index.html

[Forty Two]

All good points, but first, civil liability is different than indictment for crime. I referred only to indictment for crime.

The US Constitution doesn't give the president immunity from criminal prosecution. Absent such constitutional immunity, I believe it could only be bestowed by a federal statute passed by Congress or a Supreme Court decision, neither of which exists.

Also, there is immunity for private civil actions arising out of their duties. The Clinton aspect was limited to actions that were not part of his duties as President, and I think Trump could be sued for sexual harassment, too.

I agree.

As Alexander Hamilton wrote, "The President of the United States would be liable to be impeached, tried, and, upon conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes or misdemeanors, removed from office; and would afterwards be liable to prosecution and punishment in the ordinary course of law." And Justice Joseph Story wrote, "The president cannot, therefore, be liable to arrest, imprisonment, or detention, while he is in the discharge of the duties of his office..." 3 Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, § 1563 (Boston, Hilliard, Gary & Co. 1833).

President John Adams and Senator (later Chief Justice) Oliver Ellsworth. A senator in conversation with them about presidential prosecutability asserted that the President was not above the laws, to which they replied that "[y]ou could only impeach himand no other process [w]hatever lay against him." But then, the senator pointed out, a President committing murder on the streets could only be removed by impeachment. True, acknowledged Adams and Ellsworth, but "[w]hen he is no longer President, [y]ou can indict him." 9 The Diary of William Maclay and other Notes on Senate Debates 168 (Kenneth R. Bowling & Helen E. Veit eds., 1988). http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/ ... fss_papers and http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/ ... fss_papers

Constitutional issues in the US are rarely 100%. And, you are correct that SCOTUS has not decided the issue, and it's an argument. But, the argument that the President can be indicted for crime while in office (as opposed to having indictments held until he is impeached or left office) hasn't been set out well, in my view.

While the Supreme Court might use sources like this to inform its decision should the question come before it, they carry no weight in regard to whether the statement 'A sitting President cannot be indicted for a crime' is factual. It is not a factual statement.

It's not a statement of fact, it's a statement of law. And, as I mentioned, hardly any constitutional issues are 100%. I recognized that the issue had not been settled by the SCOTUS, so anything is possible. However, my reading of the constitution, and the precedent we do have, Federalist Papers 69 and 70, the viewpoints of Justice Story from 1833, and rather prominent founding fathers Thomas Jefferson and John Adams (from opposite sides of the then political spectrum), all agree with my position on it. I haven't seen anything substantive that disagrees.

But, it's not a settled question, as so many questions aren't. What case can you make (if you care to make one) that the sitting president can be indicted before he his impeached and removed from office (or leaves office).

[Seabass]

And all this time I thought the US and Germany were enemies in WWII.

D-Day is example of America's 'strong relationship with German government', Trump State Department spokeswoman says
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/worl ... 87221.html

A State Department spokeswoman has been ridiculed for citing the D-Day invasion as an example of America’s “very strong relationship” with Germany.

“We have a very strong relationship with the government of Germany,” Heather Nauert said.

“Looking back in the history books, today is the 71st anniversary of the speech that announced the Marshall Plan. Tomorrow is the anniversary of the D-Day invasion. We obviously have a very long history with the government of Germany, and we have a strong relationship with the government of Germany.”

During the D-Day invasion on 6 June, 1944, around 156,000 British, American, Canadian and other Allied troops stormed the beaches of Normandy to establish a foothold in Nazi-occupied France.

Ms Nauert’s comments were mocked online and dissected by MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, who pointed out the State Department spokeswoman had been hired directly from Fox News.


One Twitter user said: “Dear @StateDept: You have six months to educate Heather Nauert on the history and significance of Pearl Harbor before she cites it as an example of strong US-Japan relations. Get to it – you may need some time to catch her up.”

Another asked: “How is she qualified to work in the state dept?”

Malcolm Nance, a retired US intelligence officer, said Ms Nauert was “disgracefully ignorant of the ‘relationship’ with Hitler’s Nazi Germany at Normandy 74 years ago today. Quit now. Its 7th grade history.”

The State Department spokeswoman was defending remarks made by the new US ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell, which drew condemnation from across Germany’s political spectrum.

Mr Grenell, a former US spokesman at the United Nations and a strong supporter of Donald Trump, told the far-right Breitbart News he “absolutely wants to empower” European conservatives who are “experiencing an awakening from the silent majority”.

He was referring to recent elections which have launched conservative parties in Germany, Italy, Hungary and Austria, which he said showed “a groundswell of conservative policies that are taking hold because of the failed policies of the left. There’s no question about that, and it’s an exciting time for me”.

Mr Grenell’s comments drew criticism from German politicians, including warnings against interfering in domestic politics.

When she was asked whether it is State Department policy for US ambassadors to advocate for particular political parties, Ms Nauert responded: ”Ambassadors have a right to express their opinion. They’re representatives of the White House, whether it’s this administration or other administrations.”

[L'Emmerdeur]

While the Supreme Court might use sources like this to inform its decision should the question come before it, they carry no weight in regard to whether the statement 'A sitting President cannot be indicted for a crime' is factual. It is not a factual statement.

It's not a statement of fact, it's a statement of law.

There is no such law. In regards to current affairs there are only opinions and hypotheses from people like Giuliani whose opinions and hypotheses carry absolutely no weight in regard to actual law.

And, as I mentioned, hardly any constitutional issues are 100%. I recognized that the issue had not been settled by the SCOTUS, so anything is possible. However, my reading of the constitution, and the precedent we do have, Federalist Papers 69 and 70, the viewpoints of Justice Story from 1833, and rather prominent founding fathers Thomas Jefferson and John Adams (from opposite sides of the then political spectrum), all agree with my position on it. I haven't seen anything substantive that disagrees.

Your reading of the Constitution and £3 will get you a lousy cup of coffee in Leeds. Your reading of the Constitution and the rantings of Giuliani et al. still won't make your statement factual.

But, it's not a settled question, as so many questions aren't. What case can you make (if you care to make one) that the sitting president can be indicted before he his impeached and removed from office (or leaves office).

I'm not the one who stated that 'A sitting President cannot be indicted for a crime' as if it were a fact. It's not my burden of proof to show that a sitting president can be subject to criminal indictment because I never claimed that was the case; it isn't a settled question. What I have done is question the veracity of your statement. All of your citations and tap-dancing cannot make the statement factual, because it is not. Nor is it a legitimate and accurate statement of law.

[JimC]

If enough people sue Trump, will he quit and move to Australia?
https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/07/politics ... index.html

[Seabass]

[Hermit]

If enough people sue Trump, will he quit and move to Australia?
https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/07/politics ... index.html

Thanks, but no, thanks. We already have a full house of nutters. Hanson, Abbott, Bernardi, Dutton, Leyonhjelm, Latham...

Luckily none of them have a chance of becoming Prime Minister, though Abbott was one once, briefly. He was sacked by his own party of conservatives for being an electoral liability. 'Twas a red letter day, that was.