People? Trump is the only actor here who deserves punishment for these illegal tariffs, but there is no grounds to jail a sitting president.
People? Trump is the only actor here who deserves punishment for these illegal tariffs, but there is no grounds to jail a sitting president.
Ultimately yes. But every one of his enablers is complicit and should be tried if we are ever able to extricate ourselves from this mess.
If the lesson by now isn’t “be careful wishing for powers you don’t want the other side to use against you” then I don’t know what will drive that home…
The law applying to powerful high level people is a good thing. The state where law binds only weak people and can be safely broken by rich and powerful is the bad one.
As of now, the law applies to me. I am on that "other side". It officially does not apply to Trump at all. And billionaires and administration can safely ignore it, although there is at least pretension of the law technically maybe applying to them.
Which actual law should send them to jail?
The law is constantly applied to Trump and his administration. The judicial branch keeps reining him in: National guard, ice, tariffs—-literally TFA for Pete’s sake.
Parent post isn’t about any specific law, it’s about wanting to see a result and working backwards from there: my political opponents should go to jail.
Guess what will happen? The administration after that will send your politicians to jail. And the bananificiation of the US will be complete.
If you genuinely want Trump to go to jail , get Congress to create actual laws that he’d be breaking, with actual clear unmistakable language about its consequences. Raise the votes in the midterms. SCOTUS will enforce it: they have done so, every time, when Congress is clear and decisive. They have indicated as much!
The judicial branch is the only one left doing its job. The law applies. You don’t like how it looks, and you’re not alone, but it applies.
Edit: Let me rephrase: rather than try and find a single law by which to hang the executive , of which I’m sure there are a million, my impression is that for every one of them there’s a commensurate law which exonerates them. Congress keeps protecting the president. Congress is the most powerful of the three branches, by design . To genuinely see someone going to jail, From The executive branch , Congress needs to make a clear, unequivocal, statement.
> If you genuinely want Trump to go to jail , get Congress to create actual laws that he’d be breaking, with actual clear unmistakable language about its consequences. Trammel up the votes in the midterms. SCOTUS will enforce it: they have done so, every time, when Congress is clear and decisive. They have indicated as much! The judicial branch is the only one left doing its job. The law applies. You don’t like how it looks, and you’re not alone, but it applies.
So much good will here but oh so misguided. First of all, the judicial branch is not doing its job and hasn't done so in quite some time. The SCOTUS in particular is just an extension of a political party now and not judicial branch in any way. You give me a case and 99% of Americans will tell you exactly how each judge on SCOTUS will rule, 99% of the time. This is not "judicial branch is the only one left doing its job" - they are currently (not a recent thing though but now it has become comical) just an extension of a political party, nothing more and are absolutely not doing any job at all other then rubber-stamping shit based on their political dogma.
The "get Congress to create actual laws he'd be breaking" is even more comical. You think they can write laws that clearly state where the power of the Presidency stops in some sense and then legal ramifications of going over that power? C'mon mate...
I wish you made some concrete points rather than condescendingly rephrasing your opinion different ways a few times.
SCOTUS has actively thwarted the current administration’s efforts :
- tariffs
- national guard deployment
- foreign aid
- deportation of man to Salvador
These cases , as well as the cases they’ve ruled in favor of the administration , have been couched in reasoning based on the actual laws passed by congress so far. Read the majority opinions and the concurrences and it is clear that this is not some arbitrary “hey he got us here so let’s do what he wants” (In particular Gorsuch), but they’re actually basing their rulings on the written text.
Meanwhile there is a body whose literal job it is to arrange those texts. And you can elect them come fall. I don’t know how to answer your last , ostensibly rhetorical?, question , other than: yes how do you think any of the current laws got here? That’s what congress does.
Go vote in the midterms for the love of god.
Occasional rare result like that does not prove or show or even imply supreme court is not ideologically driven or heavily biased.
And suprene court justices themselves literally say so in their dissents.
Ok fair point.
1.) Supreme court literally decided that Trump can not commit crime while in the office. Full stop.
2.) Trump was convinced of felony. That does not apply to him, because he is a president.
3.) This administration ignores the courts.
> If you genuinely want Trump to go to jail , get Congress to create actual laws that he’d be breaking,
They actually did made those laws. Supreme court decided to either rewrite those law or that they simply dont matter.
> The judicial branch is the only one left doing its job. The law applies.
Not the supreme court.
> 2.) Trump was convinced of felony. That does not apply to him, because he is a president.
There are cases for which Trump should have been tried, but the NY one about mislabeling funds was not one of them. It was a massive reach, and I bet you <10% of the people clamoring about how he's now a "felon" know what he actually did wrong.
Meanwhile he pressured georgia secretary of state to "find votes", in a recorded call; he should have been tried for this but it didn't get brought to the courts. This was a failing of the executive: you cannot expect courts to rule on a matter which is never brought to them.
Half the country voted for this. At some point this is democracy in action. If you commit election fraud and somehow nobody charges you, i guess the same will apply to you. :(
The NY case had poor facts but was well fought. The Georgia case had good facts but was poorly fought.
> Half the country voted for this.
Actually, not half the country.
> At some point this is democracy in action.
Actually, no, winning election in democracy does not mean you get to be a tyrant to whome laws dont apply.
Also, seems like my point about law not applying to Trump stands entirely. None of your arguments actualy disagree with that claim.
Yes just to be clear I edited that original commnt from “there’s no law he’s breaking” to “for every such law, there’s another one which exonerates him/them”, so technically speaking I think we agree: he is breaking laws.
my impression from more closely following the actual Supreme Court (and federal) cases and reading the opinions as a total layman is that the laws and cases are rarely clear cut, nor isolated. They constantly pull in context and other laws and try and guess what congress meant. And many times the judges make very fair points. Things I thought were clear , actually aren’t. And I’m happy that they’re erring on the side of reticence when it comes to punishing the executive because that is a power that can (and will!) be used against the other side, in a constant escalation of partisanship. That was my original point.
This all is why I’ve come to the impression that a congress with a strong point of view is the most robust way out. If congress passes clear laws with unequivocal language about what should and shouldn’t happen in which specific transgressions of power, the judiciary will uphold it. They may be partisan in the details if that’s how you want to see it, but they will absolutely not ignore clear language from congress. These are still real judges.