One temptation to resist is to cast this lawsuit as just another example of how President Trump is willing to litigate anything to delay various trials until after the November election. This fails to take seriously what this case tells us about how he will govern if he returns to power.
Trump is saying things no other presidential candidate has ever said. The only way to be an effective president is to be willing to break the law. “If impunity is denied, all future presidents will be effectively incapacitated by intimidation and extortion while in office, and then subject to years of trauma at the hands of their political opponents once they take office,” his lawyers wrote in a brief. It will happen,” he said. “It would be the end of the presidency as we know it and would irreparably harm our republic.”
good. Leave it to the psychiatrist to determine what “post-office trauma” is. The breathtaking subtext that echoes throughout their brief is that it takes a criminal to be a good president. This has implications that voters should take very seriously, including national security.
In one of the strongest amicus briefs ever filed in court, a group of retired generals, admirals, and former military secretaries argue that absolute immunity “severely undermines the legal and moral authority of the commander-in-chief to lead the military.” “It will be,” he warned. It would be a signal that they, not him, must follow the rule of law. ” Think about it. “According to this theory, the president could direct national security officials to carry out clearly illegal orders to members of the military with impunity.”
This would threaten not only the proper functioning of our military but also our constitutional democracy. “Such threats are intolerable and dangerous, especially in times like these when anti-democratic and authoritarian regimes are on the rise around the world,” they wrote.
Mr. Trump’s surprising desire for presidential dictatorship is partially obscured by a seemingly cold legal argument over Any The president’s actions should be protected from prosecution.
In explaining its reasons for filing the lawsuit, the Supreme Court suggested that this was the issue it wanted to decide, rather than affirming the well-argued Court of Appeals decision that rejected President Trump’s claims. The commission seeks a determination of “whether and, if so, to what extent, presidential immunity from criminal prosecution is enjoyed by former presidents for acts that they allegedly engaged in while in office.” There is.
There are multiple problems with the Supreme Court’s decision-making to date. The justices could have granted Special Counsel Jack Smith’s request in December to skip the appeals process and take the case immediately. That would have given enough time to try the interference case before this year’s elections.
Instead, the court denied Mr. Smith’s request, proceeded with the appeals process, and when the court finally filed the lawsuit, scheduled a hearing for April 25, the last day of its term.
The court did not need to use this case to issue a broad ruling on presidential immunity. My Post colleague Jason Willick recently pointed out that by including Trump’s efforts to force the Justice Department to find non-existent voting fraud in the indictment, Smith is paving the way for courts to address “official conduct” issues. He claimed to have opened it.
But prosecutors need not resist indicting a former president for abuse of power just because they fear the Supreme Court will delay the case.
Moreover, as a group of founding historians stated in their brief to the court, “the framers never contemplated giving the president any role in conducting elections or transferring power.” It would be a stretch to view President Trump’s intervention as “official.”
And, as former officials from the past five Republican administrations argued in a separate brief, “even if we could hypothesize a situation that would justify exoneration of a former president, the claims here… It is impossible to formulate a possible immunity for the defendant’s conspiracy.” They argued that in future “appropriate” cases, the court could prevent unwarranted federal prosecutions against the president by respecting “constitutional limits on Congressional authority.” Congress cannot criminalize the president’s activities in areas where the Constitution gives the executive branch clear authority.
By delaying this case so long, the Supreme Court will have to rule as quickly as it did last February, when it ruled to restore Trump to the ballot after multiple states had tried to disqualify him. There is an obligation to do so. And voters who have the final say should be wary of candidates who say they believe the president’s powers are limitless.
