Whoa. The actual debate is about whether Trump can be indicted by the Federal Government. The constitution does not give immunity, and a careful read of the constitutional convention shows that no one supported that, even those wanting a stronger executive. The DOJ opinion is IMHO incorrect, as it relies upon a view of a unitary executive which has been badly conceived and undermind in many ways. A good piece on this was by Linda Greenhouse at the time of Clinton’s impeachment, worth reading as it was pre-Trump. https://www.nytimes.com/1998/01/25/weekinreview/the-nation-a-primer-prosecuting-a-president.html
There is no support that I know off (although its a shadow issue in Jones v. Clinton) for a president being immune from State Laws, including criminal prosecution. While the issue has not come up, I don’t see the supremancy clause going this far.
Finally, the original meaning of a pardon (something granted to subjects by the grace of the sovreign) would appear to undercut the idea that Trump can pardon himself.
Were Trump to squash the investigation or pardon himself, I would expect states to take action against him, and for that to be ultimately upheld in Court.
I seriously doubt anyone does a goddamned thing to either impede Trump’s assault on the law and bring him to trial on any charges. He’s the classic bully that will continue in his ways until some brave soul lays him out cold on the sidewalk and knocks the swagger out of him, for good. For now no such person exists.
Thanks for the link. The main caveat to your analysis is whether the SCOTUS will be so Trumpified by the time any cases make it there that a radical majority will decide in line with the most radical theories of presidential immunity, which – oddly for some self-proclaimed “originalists” – dispute all of your eminently logical conclusions.
I don’t think he’s being paid. I think he’s doing it partly for the exposure and the self-image as an iconoclast and partly because his brain was permanently damaged by 9/11. (I know some other people like that, who used to be more or less normal but ever since then have just subscribed to the weirdest ideas.)
He’s so far off the track that the only rationale that works for me is the allegation, so far not supported with publicly available evidence, that he dallied with underage, possibly trafficked girls at Epstein’s parties (which Trump apparently attended as well). Epstein was convicted for underage dalliances and still faces legal jeopardy apparently. Dershowitz was involved as legal counsel with the Epstein case I believe.
If Trump skates, then Dershowitz skates as well. if Trump goes down, it all comes out, Dershowitz gets pulled in and goes to jail for the remainder of his life. Powerful corrupting motivator that. This is the only Dershowitz explanation that works for me. Although I’m not claiming it’s true (yet), it very likely could be, so it remains my working theory for Duffensmirtz.
If you want to see evidence of the known facts regarding Dershowitz, Epstein and Trump see the Twitter threads from Claude Taylor and Eric Garland over the last year or so. While those two have put forth some theories that haven’t panned out, in my experience they’ve been way ahead of the MSM and even TPM on many theories that have later been proven to be fact and which we all accept now. They’ve got respectable track records w/r/t putting into the public eye theories that seemed just too far fetched at the time but have since been proven to be true.
there are only two states that matter, VA and NY. D’s hold both. Only a state which has jurisdiction over Trump and his gang of crooks can indict him, and that is NY for Trump, and VA for a lot of others.
It does not occur to Dershowitz that if anyone on the white house staff is a potential witness against the president in a criminal proceeding we’ve got a bigger problem on our hands than whether trump should be worried.
Given that Dersh worries about being left off the invitation lists on Martha’s Wineyard, this is no surprice…
