Unless there’s violent overthrow or assassination, of course.
In fairness, the framers of the constitution didn’t imagine that the vice president would be selected by the president at all, so there wouldn’t have been any fear of him pardoning an obviously corrupt president who was impeached.
I could actually see him quitting the day after electron day if he loses, with Pence giving him a blanket pardon on the way out.
It strikes me as being entirely in character.
Well, now who is being negative?
I’m just doing the neutron dance?
A quick google labels Tribe a “constitutional scholar”. Which means he must know this bears no relation to the actual history. The framers of the impeachment power did not expect a two party system, or presidential tickets, and the electoral college they designed was as likely to make rivals President and Vice President as not. It’s daft to argue some obvious intention of the framers when the two party system and the 12th amendment were years in the future.
Indeed as originally written the VP was likely to be one of the President’s rivals (which is why that got changed.)
1804 is when it changed, which isn’t that far removed from inception. Regardless, the reality of the system as it stands now is untenable for the very reasons Tribe outlines. It’s absurd and irrational to exempt a sitting President from indictment on the grounds that they are “too busy” to stand trial.
I agree that the “too busy” argument is absurd.
But there are other potential problems with indicting a sitting President. Imagine he goes to trial, is convicted, and is sentenced to prison. He is still the President, even in prison. In fact, he is still in charge of running whatever prison he is sent to.
So what’s the point of the indictment? The only point would be to force Congress to impeach the President, in order to avoid the embarrassment of a President working from a prison cell. But I’m uncomfortable with the idea that Congress should be forced to do something by a prosecutor. Maybe the current Congress is hopelessly inert when it comes to Trump, but nevertheless it’s dangerous to democracy. What if a rogue DA had decided to indict Obama in an Alabama court? Are we really going to let twelve Alabamians decide who is our president?
Wouldn’t the 25th apply, since the President is in effect physically incapable? I would guess not, since it would take the Cabinet to invoke it.
If something like that happened there’s the appeals process, which would take it out of the hands of random southerners. There’s no good answer here aside from not electing obviously corrupt individuals like trump. But at the same time if the office is won through deception and fraud, should he also benefit from being removed from the rule of law? I don’t know, but I tend to think probably not.
The 25th amendment incapacitation clause expires after three weeks, unless Congress extends it indefinitely via a supermajority vote. But if they have a supermajority, then they could just impeach. Actually, the vote requirements for impeachment are slightly easier than for the 25th amendment permaban (the former only requires a simple majority in the House).
First of all, people appeal their convictions from prison.
Secondly, an appeal is not a do-over when you don’t like what the jury decided. Just because you’re innocent doesn’t mean you will win on appeal.
Well, the usual counterargument is that if the president is guilty of a crime, then he will be tried after impeachment or after his term expires. I can’t say that’s very satisfying either, so I don’t think there is a great solution overall.
It strikes me that then he’s unable to perform his duties, for which there is a prescribed remedy.
To prevent Presidents from breaking laws?
No - he doesn’t. He’s always been an asshole to his boys and if it means he has to go without golf for more than a month they’re SOL. The only one he cares about is Ivanka, but it appears that’s just cause he wants to have sex with her. The gross way he talks, interacts, and looks at her… < shudders >.
Given that we survived 200 years without such a thing happening before the DOJ adopted this policy, I’d say it probably isn’t really a problem that justifies the policy. In any event, the Constitution says what it says, and doesn’t say what it doesn’t say, and contingencies like this one don’t make it say something else.
Yes, and that remedy is for the vice president to take over for up to three weeks. After that, power returns to the president unless a supermajority of Congress votes otherwise. So if the president is sentenced to more than three weeks of prison, we are back to where we started: it’s up to Congress to remove the President.
And I suppose this is a good place to point out that if the President were indicted and didn’t feel like standing trial, he could fire his own federal prosecutor, and then fire anyone else that tried to take over the job. And then pardon himself. So what was the point of that indictment, again?
Well, the Constitution pretty clearly says that this is the responsibility of Congress.
Yes, that’s the argument the DOJ makes, and it’s bunk. Ask Nixon how it worked out for him. I’m not uncomfortable with leaving it up to Congress how to deal with an incarcerated President.
Even the DOJ didn’t buy that argument.
And sadly, I don’t think any of the focus of the investigation is on her. She’s got issues in her businesses and actions, but I don’t think they will be highlighted by Mueller’s report.
I do think Trump might be swayed to save Junior, though. He’s been holding back on pardons here during the recent timeline, I would wager one gets busted out VERY quickly for Junior, however.
No doubt he would pardon him, but we would never take jail time to save jr. Never.
This could all play out like Stupid King Lear.
I think the framers would have assumed that of course the president had ex officio immunity from prosecution as a matter of common law, and that the remedy was to remove him from office via the impeachment process followed by indictment.