Will trump ask SCOTUS to overturn his impeachment after acquittal ?

a reply to: CynConcepts

Would Trump have any redress if it was determined that the House impeachment was part of a larger biased coup attempt?

Trump? No, I don't think so. The American people could have legal redress, in the form of prosecution of those involved. If there were to be enough of a push among Congress or the DoJ to pursue investigations into Congressional members, those members would be subject to criminal indictment and trial for certain crimes, which include treason/sedition. Congressmen are exempt like the President from most laws, but not all laws like the President. They can be indicted under serious enough conditions, whereas the President must be removed from office first.

Should this backfire as it seems to be doing, leading to a change in House leadership next year, that actually becomes a possibility, although I wouldn't call it a probability even then.

TheRedneck

a reply to: Sookiechacha

I am soooooo tired of hearing that.

That second article of impeachment charges President Trump with obstruction of Congress for refusing to comply with the congressional subpoenas in the absence of a final court order. In so charging him, the House Judiciary Committee has arrogated to itself the power to decide the validity of subpoenas, and the power to determine whether claims of executive privilege must be recognized, both authorities that properly belong with the judicial branch of our government, not the legislative branch. The House of Representatives will do likewise, when it votes to approve the articles, as the chamber is expected to do so Wednesday.

The media and the democratic liars I mean leaders are misleading you.

He doesn’t have to say those exact two words .

“ Executive privilege” need not be said .

President Trump has asserted that the executive branch, of which he is the head, need not comply with congressional subpoenas requiring the production of privileged executive material, unless there is a final court order compelling such production.

Does anybody read the source material? Same one

a reply to: Sookiechacha

There is nothing in the Constitution that says a sitting president can't be indicted for a crime. It's is a Department of Justice policy not to indict a sitting president.

Actually, there is, although somewhat indirect.

Article II, Section 1, Paragraph 1:

The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows

Executive power is the power to enforce laws. Therefore, the one who holds the power to enforce laws is himself, in any practical sense, immune from the laws as no one indicts themselves.

The Constitution also indicates this in Article II, Section 4:

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

Again, the Constitution indicates the above in Article I, Section 3, Clause 7:

Judgment in Cases of impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.

This specifies that a removed President or Vice President may be subject to indictment and criminal prosecution, a statement that would not be necessary if they were subject to such during their tenure.

This is why the DoJ policy exists. Any attempt to prosecute a sitting President by any member of the executive Branch would not only create an actual Constitutional crisis, but would place the head of that department in a compromising position. They work for the President, at the pleasure of the President.

TheRedneck

a reply to: Fallingdown

I am soooooo tired of hearing that.

Too bad.

I'm tired of hearing lies that Trump exerted executive privilege when he didn't. Executive privilege has a mechanism that Trump and his Admin chose not to use. It isn't silently assumed every time the White House chooses to ignore subpoenas.

a reply to: Sookiechacha

President Trump never exerted executive privilege during the Ukraine hearings or the Mueller investigation.

A sitting President does not have to verbally or 'officially' indicate when he exerts Executive Privilege. Simply refusing to answer is an exertion of Executive Privilege. If asked why he refused, most Presidents will explain they are exerting Executive Privilege, but that is not a requirement.

TheRedneck

originally posted by: Fallingdown
Nope

I’ll even give you a hint .

“Click”

Is that an old fashioned phone noise?

a reply to: TheRedneck

All that applies to impeachment, and a subsequent indictment for the crime the president was impeached, convicted in the Senate and removed from office for. It's not about whether or not Trump could be investigated if he shot a person on 5th Avenue. If the President shot someone on 5th Avenue, he is not immune from investigation or indictment, should the investigation find the shooting unprovoked.

The House has the sole power to impeach. If they choose not to impeach Trump over shooting someone, without provocation, they don't have to.

Now, whether or not the DOJ would indict him for the unprovoked shooting is a matter of DOJ policy, not Constitutional law.

a reply to: TheRedneck

Bill snip! Executive privilege must be invoked/asserted.

The scope of the privilege can be argued, but only after it's invoked/asserted. Silence and refusing to acknowledge a subpoena isn't an invocation of executive privilege.

Eisenhower would invoke the claim 44 times between 1955 and 1960.

Nixon invoked the privilege and refused to produce any records.

The Clinton administration invoked executive privilege on fourteen occasions.

The Bush administration invoked executive privilege on six occasions.

President Barack Obama asserted executive privilege in order to withhold certain Department of Justice documents related to the Operation Fast and Furious controversy

On May 8, 2019, Trump asserted executive privilege regarding the full Mueller Report at the request of the attorney general.

On June 12, 2019, Trump asserted executive privilege over documents related to the addition of a citizenship question on the 2020 census. This was in response to a subpoena from the House of Representatives

en.wikipedia.org...

Trump did not invoke or assert executive privilege in Don McGah's subpoena, or any of the ones that followed, in the House's impeachment inquiry.

a reply to: Sookiechacha

All that applies to impeachment, and a subsequent indictment for the crime the president was impeached, convicted in the Senate and removed from office for. It's not about whether or not Trump could be investigated if he shot a person on 5th Avenue. If the President shot someone on 5th Avenue, he is not immune from investigation or indictment, should the investigation find the shooting unprovoked.

Oooh, boy.... you really are naive about this whole Constitutional Law thing, aren't you?

To start with, that clause about indictment only applies to a "removed" President. It says nothing at that point about impeachment itself, because impeachment is only a formal accusation. It serves the same purpose for removal from office as an indictment does for a criminal prosecution.

Let's think through your hypothetical, shall we? Suppose President Donald Trump walked out into the middle of 5th Avenue New York one morning and shot someone for no reason, right in front of God and everybody. Now, what is the DoJ going to do about it? If they try to indict him, the President has the full power and authority to dismiss any person in the Executive Branch for any reason at any time. That's what it means when one says they "serve at the pleasure of the President." So the FBI opens an investigation into the shooting, and the President just fires the agents it was assigned to. The FBI opens another investigation, and this time the President fires those agents as well, along with the agent that assigns cases. Let's say Bill Barr decides to step in. "Mr. Barr, you are fired, effective immediately."

There is no one in the DoJ that does not serve at the pleasure of the President. Congress can complain, but they cannot prosecute. Congress is not the Executive Branch.

That is precisely why we have the impeachment/removal process, because it is impossible to effectively prosecute the chief prosecutor. A snake will not cut off its own head. We have an impeachment process that removes the power of such a President from office so he does become subject to the laws, including laws broken while he was in office. It is limited to removal from office, because our Founders recognized that Congress is inherently a political body and politics could be used to abuse such power... like it is now.

You need to get it through your head that the President is the leader of the United States, for good or ill. He serves at the pleasure of the people, and only at the pleasure of the people... the people are the true apex of power. He does not serve at the pleasure of the Congress, the pleasure of a judge, or anyone else except the people. We the People will get to decide in just 10 months whether or not the President stay President. We will also decide whether the House gets to stay under the same leadership or not. We will decide the balance of political power in the Senate.

I wish I had more time to teach you the basics (you should have learned about this in grammar school), but I don't... I do have things to do. Not that you'd listen anyway...

TheRedneck

a reply to: Sookiechacha

Bill snip! Executive privilege must be invoked/asserted.

OK, I give up... Donald Trump is in violation of Wikipedia.

*sigh*

TheRedneck

a reply to: Sookiechacha

ex·ec·u·tive priv·i·lege
noun
the privilege, claimed by the president for the executive branch of the US government, of withholding information in the public interest.

President Trump has asserted that the executive branch, of which he is the head, need not comply with congressional subpoenas requiring the production of privileged executive material, unless there is a final court order compelling such production.

That’s from my last post and I can’t make it much clearer than that .

Are you under the impression the words “executive privilege” must be uttered ?!

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

Nope

Do you need another hint ?

a reply to: Fallingdown

not comply with congressional subpoenas requiring the production of privileged executive material, unless there is a f

"Need not comply" is not the mechanism for invoking executive privilege.

a reply to: TheRedneck

Now, what is the DoJ going to do about it?

Investigate why and how the president shot someone down on 5th Avenue.

If they try to indict him, the President has the full power and authority to dismiss any person in the Executive Branch for any reason at any time.

Except to obstruct justice and cover up for his or his friend's crimes.

"Mr. Barr, you are fired, effective immediately."

That didn't work out so well for Nixon.

a reply to: Fallingdown

Are you under the impression the words “executive privilege” must be uttered ?!

I think that's what she is trying to say, but she's just wrong.

Executive privilege always exists. It does not appear when magic words are uttered. The President asserts it by refusing to divulge internal communications, not by stating those magic words. How many times have we heard Democrats in hearings trying to force disclosure of privileged communications asked the question "Are you exerting Executive Privilege?" Why would they even question it if those magic words had not been used?

Of course they weren't... they can't. Only the President (or Vice President) can do so, but as representatives of the White House they were bound to abide by the President's decision on that issue. Had they divulged privileged communications without direct approval of the President, they would have violated the President's right to assert Executive Privilege. But the President, by virtue of not allowing public discussion of the conversations, was asserting Executive Privilege.

The President can ignore Executive Privilege if he likes... he can give any testimony he wishes to about those privileged conversations, or he can instruct his underlings to divulge them. But Executive Privilege is always invoked until and unless the President decides not to. It's not unlike the 5th Amendment giving an individual the right against self-incrimination: a person can confess of their own free will all they want. They don't have to refuse to self-incriminate. But unless and until they decide to self-incriminate, no one can force them to do so. They do not have to recite the 5th Amendment, or even state that they are invoking the 5th Amendment... that "I refuse to answer on the grounds/basis it may incriminate me" or "I invoke the 5th Amendment" are just common phrases to answer the question of why one is not answering.

The main difference is that the Supreme Court can order Executive Privilege suspended... it is a "privilege," not a "right," and so is subject to court overrule. But the House never allowed the Supreme Court to rule on that. The Supreme Court does not hear cases that are not submitted to it.

I'm listening to the trial now, and they are talking about this very point... that the President did not provide all documents and testimony requested. What they are not saying is that he did not have to under law without a court order to do so. Congress is not above the law.

TheRedneck

a reply to: TheRedneck

Executive privilege always exists.

No it doesn't.

Executive privilege exists to protect national security, not personal embarrassment or to conceal crimes.

The words "executive privilege" don't have to be uttered, but executive privilege must be invoked in response to legal subpoenas. As in, "we're not going to answer this question because it would endanger national security, and therefore falls under the auspice of executive privilege".

a reply to: TheRedneck

I was going to make a similar post I guess I took too long . Lol

I came at it from a different angle because I fear Wikipedia .

So I went ahead and looked up the judiciary committee‘s lawsuit .

Page 9 of the judiciary suit

The material facts that underlie this lawsuit are not in dispute.

Page 12......

The letter explained that McGahn was “not to produce White House records in response to the Committee’s April 22 subpoena” on the grounds that the requested records “remain legally protected from disclosure under longstanding constitutional principles, because they implicate significant Executive Branch confidentiality interests and executive privilege.”

Lawsuit


Thing is as I was looking at it. There’s a better than even chance they would’ve won because of United States House of Representatives v. Harriet Miers .

Like everybody’s been seen they jump the gun .

a reply to: Sookiechacha

Except to obstruct justice and cover up for his or his friend's crimes.

Does it matter? If there's no one that can prosecute, he gets away with it... well, until the next election. Maybe then, since people seem so partisan today.

Hint, hint.

That didn't work out so well for Nixon.

Actually, it did. Nixon was never impeached, never removed, and never charged. He resigned before he could be impeached and well before he could be removed from office, and his hand-picked Vice President (Gerald Ford. appointed after Spiro Agnew resigned... he was in on Watergate as well) pardoned him for his crimes. I remember it well... it was my first experience with the circus we call "politics."

TheRedneck

a reply to: Sookiechacha

Executive privilege exists to protect national security, not personal embarrassment or to conceal crimes.

And who decides that? You? On what basis? You haven't seen/heard what is being withheld... no one outside the White House has!

That's why the Supreme Court can suspend Executive Privilege.

TheRedneck

a reply to: Fallingdown

There's a very good chance the House would have won. Not a guarantee, by any means, but a good chance. All they had to do was allow their own lawsuit to go through and there would be no question about Executive Privilege.

Oh, and had the President refused to comply with a Supreme Court ruling, he would have a serious impeachment charge against him, too! "Refusal to Comply with Supreme Court Orders" is a pretty big one. We would be talking about if he would be removed from office, not saying there was no basis for removal.

Nope, was taking too long, so they rushed through the vote on purely circumstantial evidence and speculation... then they purposely held up their own rushed procedure for a month, just 'cause, you know, the Senate wasn't agreeing with them.

Yeah, right...

TheRedneck