Quote (Black XistenZ @ Jan 10 2024 03:38pm)
You're focusing on specifics of the example to dodge the actual essence of the question.
Let's take a different scenario which doesn't imply that Constitutional order has already broken down anyway: say Tiffany Trump ends up in the hospital badly battered by her violent husband, president Trump wants to see him killed. Trump asks various Secret Service agents, CIA assassins, Seal teams and so on until he actually finds someone willing to take out the husband. The House impeaches him, but in the Senate, only 64 senators vote to convinct, resulting in Trump being acquitted. Could Trump be prosecuted for murder after leaving office?
The core legal question is if presidential immunity is really all-encompassing as claimed by Trump's lawyers, or if it only applies to actions related to carrying out the constitutional duties of the office within the boundaries of the law.
Say Donald Trump is brought up on charges of murder in a criminal court. But it goes to trial and only 5 jurors want to convict, and a mistrial is declared. Is Trump avoiding all legal consequence?
The constitution lays out the impeachment process as the legal recourse for charging a president with high crimes and misdemeanors. Its subject to the same qualifications as a jury trial, except it doesn't require a unanimous verdict or evidence beyond reasonable doubt.
Saying Trump could have enough senators to scuttle impeachment is like saying Trump could have enough jurors to scuttle a prosecution. That's the system
working. What is it you'd want in that scenario, a legal recourse by which a president could be prosecuted and imprisoned
without due process?