He can obviously do whatever the fuck he wants. This unfortunately isn’t even a reasonable question to be asking at this point.
I dont think he needs to pardon himself.
He cannot pardon himself anyways for state crimes.
But what will happen is the judge would give a slap on the wrist sentence like a fine and call it a day.
Because the alternative is the judge giving a prison sentence and then the president goes “The NY Courts have made their decision, now let them enforce it” essentially creating a State vs Federal government political crisis.
Spoilers, the Federal government wins.
What if NY gonna do, send agents to somehow get past the SS to arrest the president?
If that was even attempted, the president would invoke insurrection act and arrest the governor/judge/ whoever gave the order for the arrest and flip the narrative, claiming the state officials are attempting a coup.
It’s legally unclear if he’s able to pardon himself for state crimes. He’s the president of the United States, not the president of New York.
But I hope he tries to pardon himself for anything, just so we can get this before the Supreme Court, because I think they would side with him but I sure want to see it play out. In reality he’s in such bad health and so old that I think he’s probably going to die before he would face any prison time, so the best we can hope for is that the Supreme Court makes greater fools of themselves, or somehow miraculously surprises us and does the right thing, which I don’t expect but you know it’s theoretically possible.
You need to stop thinking laws are inviolable writ handed down from God. We’re all playing a game of shared make believe where the rules are only strong as the collective will to enforce them. That will doesn’t appear to be sufficient so he can likely do what he wants.
Mafia and Goverment are the same thing at different scales, social order established from a central unit that enforces their will via violence funded by protection money/taxes Just as “cults” eventually become religion at a critical mass, then your fringe beliefs become legitimate church doctrine.
All the rules of the world are made up and only apply if enough people say and act as they apply. Justice is a point of view, not a inherent truth.
Oh good, finally someone I can talk with about metaphysics!
This is the answer. Clear, concise, and correct,
Bruh it won’t matter.
Right? Who is gonna stop him from doing whatever the fuck he wants?
Somebody with better aim. I very much doubt we’ve seen the last attempt on his life. Groups on all sides are inching closer and closer to extremist acts lately, and don’t show any signs of slowing down. We’re in for chaos now.
I very much doubt we’ve seen the last attempt on his life.
And it’s just as likely to come from a disillusioned historically republican as from someone more to the left.
nice username
The American Constitution will stop him doing a lot of things people are scared of.
The Constitution is just words on paper. Meaningless unless taken seriously and enforced by people. What people can enforce it now?
The American Constitution says that Presidents can’t accept gifts from any foreign source, and that has been interpreted in the past as a general prohibition on Presidents operating in any capacity in any private enterprise. Jimmy Carter put his peanut farm in a blind trust.
Not only was Donald Trump allowed to circumvent this during his first term, retaining ownership of his businesses and nominally putting his kids in charge while they pursued foreign deals, but today Trump is waist deep in Crypto, and owns a majority share of a publicly traded company whose ticker is his initials. Foreigners can (and likely do) shovel money into both. Do you think anyone will ask him to divest, like the Constitution requires him to?
The Constitution is useless unless it is enforced. It relies on checks and balances between competing branches, and right now they are broken. The only checks on Presidential power are the military (whose oath is to yhe Constitution, not to any one President) and the individual states (who retain all powers not explicitly given to the Federal government).
No it won’t.
The poster above had it right. The law only works if the will of the people make it work. Same applies to the Constitution.
Public schools in the bible belt have been teaching creationism and putting the ten commandments in their classrooms. Do you think the New Order we just elected are going to go out of their way to enforce the Constitution and make them stop doing things like that?
Be prepared for FLAGRANT violations of the Constitution in the coming years. I mean come on, the guy we just elected illegally attempted to overturn the last election and is a convicted felon.
It’s over. America lost.
Not only did we squarely place ourselves on the path of economic/social decline for the foreseeable future, but we also just guaranteed that Trump will not be held accountable for his crimes.
We have utterly failed as citizens in a democratic society.
Buckle up. It gets much, much worse from here.
Trump and his party are nazis. Nazis suck because they bring the law of the jungle into civilization.
The law of civilization is cooperation.
The law of the jungle is, can I physically do it.
Republicans basically exist to shout, burn their own house down (also yours), and celebrate. They’re going to burn the checks and balances.
Yet it was the Democrats who were attacking and berating undecideds (Democrats disenfranchised by the Biden/Harris administration) instead of listening to them and cooperating with them.
It was you guys who advanced Harris to the general having horribly lost all of her past elections. It was you guys who ate up her horse shit with a spoon, refused to listen to reason, and drove us straight into that Trump wall (literally, she was championing the Trump Wall as one of her few confirmed platforms).
You need to reevaluate who you call nazi. I get to call the purple fascist mob nazis, but its rich to me to hear a blue nazi calling a red nazi a nazi. I want the nazis to stop being nazis, not to project their naziism at each-other in a viscous never ending death loop, just increasing the ambient naziism.
The Constitutional text is very broad:
The President … shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.
So it looks rather absolute, for Fedral crimes. However, the real situation is complicated. This is just one clause in the Constitution, while the President is supposed to be bound by all of it. So, presumably, he can’t exercise his pardon power in a way that violates something else in the Constitution. If you go deeper into the Federalist papers, it’s quite clear that the Founders held that no man should be his own judge, and a self-pardon effectively does just that.
Here is a good write-up, although I do note it was written before the Supreme Court put their thumb on the scale and said he could do whatever the hell he wanted, as long as he doesn’t get impeached for it:
https://protectdemocracy.org/work/the-presidential-pardon-power-explained/
I expect him to do it anyway. It will be challenged, but courts will reject it due to “lack of standing” and sidestep the messy business of having to tell the King he went too far.
Basically the only answer that takes the question seriously and brings facts to the table instead of an opinion.
No president has tried it before. Whether he can get away with pardoning himself has yet to be seen. For him not to get away with it would require someone to bring some sort of court case challenging it. And to bring a case, they have to have “standing.” (That is to say, they have to have some credible justification why the self-pardoning action the president took wronged the petitioner in some way.) Which would probably require some legal argument that has never been made before.
I’m guessing Trump probably could get away with it, but given that no president has tried this, we’ll just have to see for sure.
For federal stuff, yes … probably, it’s never been tested, but the current SCOTUS won’t stop him.
Not for state crimes. Like the 34 felony counts in NY. But enforcement of any sentence (probably financial) is unclear. Also unprecedented.
I know nothing about anything related to the USA but I predict that Trump will not pay anything
I’d like to see a Constitutional Crisis, please
When he controls the Supreme Court… yes. He can pardon anyone for anything.
Prepare to see everyone involved in the most blatant act of open tyranny since the Civil War pardoned as soon as he takes office.
Yup. The Confederacy won this time. Prepare yourself for a bleak future.
Not state level offenses, only federal crimes, at least as the law stands now.
Yes, because he can do anything he wants and just declare legal.
There is no punishment for this supervillain. His cult makes sure of that.
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he doesn’t need to since he already has absolute legal immunity according to the Supreme Court.
The president is now absolutely immune from all legal prosecution as long as it pertains to a “official duty”.
The constitution is vague enough about official presidential duties that the official duties of the president can literally be anything.
Trump, and future presidents, are functionally immune from any legal consequences for any actions they take.
Theoretically, probably not, practically, and in real life, most probably definitely yes.
I don’t think so.
But if it’s like any other norm-breaking violation we’ve seen him make, he will do it anyway, there will be legal challenges, they will ultimately be fruitless, he will suffer no consequences, and everyone will go along with it.
