368
'He is in serious jeopardy': Legal expert warns Trump his back is against the wall
(www.rawstory.com)
this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2024
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I felt the same for a long time, but as much as I hate to admit it, it does kind of make sense in an abhorrent kind of way.
The hierarchy in a democracy is supposed to go...
Voting Public ➡️ Representatives ➡️ Laws ➡️ Courts ➡️ Rulings
That being the case, a Court shouldn't really hear cases that might undermine the will of the Voting Public.
If courts are empowered by the Voting Public, then a Court should not be in a position to make a Ruling the Voting Public does not want, despite that Ruling being correct in the context of the Law.
Another way of saying the same thing, is that if the Voting Public want's Trump to have a fair trial they would obviously not elect him as President.
I understand your viewpoint, but disagree.
By that argument any criminal ever could argue against prosecution because they intend to run for a public office. Ridiculous exaggeration of course, but if Trump gets this chance, everyone else should too.
Not really, as you said it's just not within the realm of possibility for anyone else.
Trump stands a good chance of being elected in a few weeks. An unfavourable court ruling would undermine that. Do you want to live in a country where courts are more powerful than the will of the people?
Also, imagine what would happen if he did get locked up now. It would be pandemonium, and not without reason.
The only way to get rid of Trump is to vote against him, then watch him fade into irrelevance.
It's not just. He should be locked up for his crimes. If people would want him released, they'd have to vote for a candidate who promises to do that. Just being a promising candidate isn't a reason not to be prosecuted. There is simply no law for that.
The justice system is being intimidated by an angry mob into waiting out the situation. This is against everything what the justice system is supposed to do.
It's not the will of "the people", it's the will of a minority. He HAS been voted out. Courts should indeed be more powerful than that.
Of course there's "a law for that" - it's the basic paradigm of democracy.
You feel that it's unjust, but half the country apparently disagrees with you.
I absolutely understand the feeling - he deserves to be locked up and to become irrelevant, and it would seem to be a convenient escape from this nightmare.
The uncomfortable truth though, is that if a court does anything to diminish Trump, he will become a martyr.
The voting public needs to decide they want him held accountable.
The half the country that disagrees isn't disagreeing with the laws Trump broke and voting to repeal them. If they were, your argument would have standing. Trump wins, those laws get repealed, no one ever has to be subject to these unjust laws. In a scenario where someone was campaigning to legalize pot nationally but was in court for possession you would be 100% correct.
However, this half the country wants those laws to continue to apply to everyone else, but not to apply to Trump, one of the most corrupt, self serving people ever to hold office. The whole country agrees that those laws should exist (fraud, sexual assault, corruption, election interference, insurrection). Half the country thinks Trump should just be above the law, and you can't have democracy when the law treats people differently.
Your argument sounds logical on the surface, but it's deeply flawed to the point where it's almost suspicious in its dishonestly.
What is suspicious or dishonest about my argument? What are your suspicions?
You're correct that the voting public wants all those laws, but just doesn't want them to apply to Trump.
The point of my illustration layout out the manner in which the voting public controls the courts, is merely to show that the court must be subservient to the will of the voting public.
Not hearing the cases against Trump is problematic, but it's less so than a situation where cases against candidates are allowed to undermine elections.
The "voting public" deciding a candidate is above the law isn't democratic.
The courts are not a democratic institution, they're there to apply the laws passed by a democratically elected government in a fair and impartial manner.
Sure the laws should be subject to the will of the people, but the application of the law should not. That's nonsense.
Saying it's dangerous to apply a law everyone agrees with to a politician who committed crimes is absurd.
Thanks for the response, now I KNOW you're just a Trumptard playing "Devils advocate".
Sorry chief, you've misunderstood my argument. I'm not going to repeat myself ad nauseam so you're welcome to keep thinking that I'm a Trumptard and that I (along with every judge in the US) am mistaken about the role of courts in democracy and more specifically in elections.
You're describing why convictions shouldn't bar people from voting or running for office and deciding it means the powerful should be above the law.
Not really.
Are you suggesting that a guilty verdict wouldn't effect the result of the election?
It should when they're guilty, great mind.
The problem, of which I'm sure you're aware, is that courts in the US tend to be partisan, so guilt will be determined according to the ideology of the accused.
It might feel great when Trump is on the pointy end, but how would you feel if a corrupt court was hearing a case against Harris? I'm quite sure you would feel as though the court shouldn't hear a case that can influence an election.
You're just not operating on good faith, huh.
Good luck with that, I don't think you're being paid enough to be a class traitor but whatever.
Ad hominem, the hallmark of lazy thinkers with nothing to say.
Just because you don't like what I'm saying doesn't make it wrong.
Can the press be above the voting population? Surely not. So they shouldn't be allowed to publish articles with uncomfortable thruths about a candidate? Also the democrats, they say bad thruths about trump. They shouldn't be allowed to say that.
Sorry I'm struggling to understand your meaning.
That figures.
Witty.
Thanks.
Well, if the voting public has ultimate say than why are there rules on who can become president in the first place?
The public electing representatives who make these rules is one thing. Courts undermining elections arbitrarily is entirely another.
The public needs to decide whether they want Trump to be held accountable for his crimes.
Arbitrarily? They have pretty good indications that trump has committed multiple crimes.
The public should not be the ones who decide if someone is accountable. This is not a direct democracy. (Hardly a democracy at all)
I agree that the public doesn't have adequate skills, experience, or knowledge to determine whether someone should be held accountable.
I also agree that Trump has undoubtedly committed multiple crimes and deserves to be penalised, probably by being incarcerated.
The problem is that the electoral college is likely to have sufficient votes to elect him regardless.
The core problem is that courts shouldn't influence elections. It seems like a great idea now because the "baddies" will be on the pointy end of that stick, but undoubtedly it would be turned against us later on.
While you make a point to consider, an educated and informed electorate is bedrock to a democracy.
Maybe the results of the Discovery process should be public record before a vote.
Yeah but also nah.
Airing dirty laundry in discovery is tantamount to an unfavourable ruling - its still the courts undermining a democratic process.
Imagine if the shoe were on the other foot - a republican judge digging away for dirt on Kamala during "discovery".
You would feel that unfair, and that's exactly how republicans world feel about Trump going through some kind of discovery process now.
If there is evidence of a crime involving the canidate or campaign, the voters being kept unaware is also a crime.
Sorry, that's quite simply untrue. There is no law that says you must finalise a case against a candidate during the campaign.
If winning the vote entailed an actual public majority, you might have some argument there. But that's not what we have.
I acknowledge that the electoral college misrepresents the popular vote, but that is the mechanism by which the will of your voting public is polled.
That's not really relevant to my point, which is simply that in a healthy democracy courts need to avoid influencing elections.
Letting guilty insurrectionists run for re-election in clear contravention of the constitution isn't affecting the election in any way in your view?
If you mean I influence the traffic outside my house by not standing in the middle of the road, then sure the courts are influencing the election.
This is more like you're a traffic warden and when people park across the middle of a busy intersection, you do nothing and then claim you don't want to affect the traffic.
If you're a teacher and you let the kids play on their phones all year, have you influenced the learning?
Inaction is a choice and has consequences.
The purpose of traffic wardens is to direct traffic. The purpose of teachers is to educate children. The purpose of courts does not include influencing elections.
Anyone would agree that courts deferring rulings is not ideal, but it's better than a situation where courts are influencing elections.
Do you have any other explanation as to why every judge in every court hearing a case against Trump has expressed reluctance to take any action that might undermine the election?
Actually, the purpose of courts is to enforce the law. It's only of influence in the election because Donald Trump is a 44-time convicted felon and an insurrectionist who is barred from the presidency by the constitution. He brought that all on himself, and didn't think of the consequences.
This is so tedious.
Please, by all means, continue wishing that you lived in a country where courts are used to subvert democratic processes.
I find it tedious too that the Republican party would pick an insurrectionist and serial bankruptee as their candidate and then get butthurt if the courts do their job, somehow believing that Trump's electoral desires outweigh the legal process. I bet if it were a Democrat who was up on felony charges you'd be demanding that they be denied bail!
It's not Trumps electoral desires that outweigh the legal process. The electoral process is the core of democracy, and it can't be subverted by a public institution.
If the electorate is stupid enough to elect an insurrectionist and serial bankruptee then public institutions including courts must allow them to do so. That's a fundamental inescapable component of democracy.
Yes a Trump presidency will be a disaster for everyone. Yes Trump deserves to face the consequences of his many crimes. Yes the American public is about to make a terrible mistake.
However, the dirty complex unsolvable problem is that Trump may have enough support to be elected President. The court is not the right tool to address that issue, because the court is empowered albeit indirectly by the electorate.
It natural to want court processes to expose Trump as the fraud he is and cut his chances at a second presidency. It wouldn't necessarily work out that way though. Courts are regularly used in faux-democracies to empower autocrats. That would be the perception amongst Trump's base and really, if we're allowing courts to influence elections then the only thing separating us from "autocrats" is that we think we're the goodies and they're the baddies which is obviously a furphy.
The only way to get rid of Trump is at the polls. Beat him in the election, send him to jail, watch him disappear into his worst nightmare of irrelevance.
No, the constitution says he's ineligible to be president because he's an insurrectionist. Just the same as Arnold Schwarzenegger is ineligible to be president because he wasn't born in the USA. It's not election interference to keep Trump off the ballot paper any more than it is to keep Arnie off the ballot paper, and it doesn't matter how many people want Arnie or Trump as president, those are the rules of the election. He ought not to be on the ballot paper and the courts should have ruled on this years ago. "BuT DemOCracy" doesn't overrule the constitution. If you want a different constitution, you need to get it through the process of passing an amendment, but as it stands, he's ineligible.
All I can do is to keep rephrasing the same points you're trying to avoid.
Do you really want a court to decide the outcome of an election?
Do you need me to enumerate the many problems that would cause?
I keep answering the question again and again and it keeps blowing your mind and you think I mustn't mean it.
I want the courts to decide who is guilty and apply the law. No matter who. I don't think ex presidents should be above the law, and very very very much neither did the founding fathers.
What I don't want the courts to do is ignore the law just because someone is a Republican, and you think I can't possibly mean it and that there's a massive gotcha for me because there's a theoretical possibility that a Democrat candidate would go to jail, but the crazy thing is that I really do think that that's how the law should work.
It's called the rule of law, and republicans think it means they can put people they don't like in jail, but actually it just means following the rules irrespective of who the person is.
I don't know why you think someone should escape punishment just because they might be elected, particularly if they're guilty of crimes that are supposed preclude them from being president.
You're misunderstanding me. It doesn't blow my mind that a Democrat should go to jail if they break the law, of course they should.
I wholeheartedly agree that everyone should be subject to the rule of law and that both republicans and democrats should be tried for their crimes. The problem that I don't think you've really accounted for, at least not in your comments, is corruption. I'm sure you will agree that the judicial system in the US is partisan, and guilt can be determined according to ideology.
If courts are encouraged to try cases against candidates for elections, you can guarantee that courts will be used nefariously. There are numerous examples of failed democracies where courts are used in that way to legitimise autocrats.
You would be correct in calling this a design flaw, or an inherent limitation of democracy. It's a complex problem with no good solution.
A few months ago I would have agreed with you that Trump ought to be locked up. If he had been locked up 18 months ago, that would have been fantastic. However, after much thought I've come to the conclusion that the only way forward is for him to be beaten in the election.
Great.
Yeah. This.
Aw, shoot. (Not literally, of course.) And we were getting along so well.
Hooray!
Dangit. He should still be locked up. Republicans will be outraged. Outraged, I tell you, every time Republican felons go to jail for crimes they did commit, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't happen.
For the millionth time, locking up a candidate during an election cycle would make the winner of the election an autocrat by default.
You would've become everything you hate about the republicans.
I've got bad news for you: Trump is going going to be an autocrat. She should be stopped by the course. I'm not going to become anything, and you bizarrely seem to think that the thing I hate about the republicans is that criminals go to jail, but that's really not anything to do with what I dislike about the republicans.
Stopping Trump with the courts is autocratic.
So your argument is right, but completely not based on our current reality?
I'm struggling to understand what you're saying.
Yes the electoral college is shit. That's not a reason to allow courts to manipulate elections.
They're already doing that through deliberate inaction. Lock his ass up, already.
Do you want to live in a country where courts incarcerate the candidates they don't like? I'm sure that will work out very well.