Trump Legal Troubles

[ZRod]

1 hour ago, Scarlet said:

I guess but the Constitution never required conviction.

Ok, but nobody has found him guilty of anything yet whether that's a jury, judge, or congress. So you're saying someone, anyone, could just go Michael Scott and declare him a traitor and that's that?

[BigRedBuster]

2 minutes ago, ZRod said:

Ok, but nobody has found him guilty of anything yet whether that's a jury, judge, or congress. So you're saying someone, anyone, could just go Michael Scott and declare him a traitor and that's that?

Are you saying the people who wrote various parts of the constitution maybe didn't do the best job at clarifying things?

So....now we can have a conversation about the 2nd amendment?

[ZRod]

3 minutes ago, BigRedBuster said:

Are you saying the people who wrote various parts of the constitution maybe didn't do the best job at clarifying things?

So....now we can have a conversation about the 2nd amendment?

Lol no. But you're not wrong.

 

I'm just pointing out that there's a process for these things (I think...), and obviously it wasn't followed.

[commando]

does this ruling say that...if trump is found guilty of insurrection in a court of law......he is still good to go for president as long as congress doesn't ban him?

[TGHusker]

Of course Trump would say the below.  He knows more than all of the generals and apparently more than all of the SC justices combined.  - As reflected in his winning record in court cases since the 2020 election - opps I guess he's on the LOSER side as far as winning court cases. 

 

Trump is an Idiot

Quote

 

Former President Donald Trump warned of a possibly "terrible" ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court regarding his claims of presidential immunity.

While speaking to reporters at his Mar-a-Lago residence following Monday's Supreme Court ruling upholding his ballot eligibility, Trump spoke about an upcoming hearing involving his claims of presidential immunity relating to the January 6 riots at the Capitol.

"Presidents have to be given total immunity, they have to be allowed to do their job," Trump said. "If they're not allowed to do their job it's not what the founders wanted, but perhaps even more importantly it will be terrible for our country."

 

 

[Scarlet]

2 hours ago, ZRod said:

Ok, but nobody has found him guilty of anything yet whether that's a jury, judge, or congress. So you're saying someone, anyone, could just go Michael Scott and declare him a traitor and that's that?

 

I'm saying that section 3 doesn't require the threshold to be "convicted of insurrection" before being barred from running for office.  Historical it hasn't been applied that way. I have a hard time believing that the authors, if they had intended that the threshold be conviction of insurrection, would not have spelled that out.  

 

If it required conviction what would happen in a situation where the participation in an insurrection was undertaken so closely to the election that a conviction wasn't possible?  The district court judge in Colorado found that he participated in an insurrection.  It's a dead amendment now with the way court ruled so why even have it?  

 

[Born N Bled Red]

At what point does he have to be ruled out due to the extreme number of high profile high stakes law suits he is involved in? How could he possibly serve as president and give it the time and attention necessary to perform the job while he is giving depositions and defending his fraud and SA nearly every day. 

 

At what point does the extreme amount of debt he's incurred due to losing said lawsuits create a situation in which he cannot possibly serve without it being a conflict of interest, an outright disregard of the emoluments clause, and the risk of selling the office of the presidency to the highest bidder? 

 

And to your point Archy, yes it was a unanimous court decision. Again, the left wing of the court stayed true to its principles, while the right wing did an about face destroying their own precedent they set in Bush v. Gore, in which the conservative majority ruled that the Federal Govt. had no power to tell states what to do in regard to elections, federal or other. 

[ZRod]

2 hours ago, Scarlet said:

 

I'm saying that section 3 doesn't require the threshold to be "convicted of insurrection" before being barred from running for office.  Historical it hasn't been applied that way. I have a hard time believing that the authors, if they had intended that the threshold be conviction of insurrection, would not have spelled that out.  

 

If it required conviction what would happen in a situation where the participation in an insurrection was undertaken so closely to the election that a conviction wasn't possible?  The district court judge in Colorado found that he participated in an insurrection.  It's a dead amendment now with the way court ruled so why even have it?  

 

What are you arguing here? As I pointed out before, you can't just say someone committed treason and now they are forever barred from holding office. That makes no sense. They need to be convicted and found guilty, or as the clause says; confess their guilt in open court. The punishment for treason isn't spelled out in the Constitution, it's spelled out in the justice code which is where the penalty of barring from office can be found (written by Congress) along with the other punishments. We have due process for a reason, and this case isn't any different.

 

Addressing your last paragraph, that would be an extraordinary circumstance. I would think the supreme Court would work to expedite the trial, and if found guilty punishments would be retroactive regarding offices. I didn't read the Colorado judge's opinion, but I really don't think it holds much weight given that Trump has not been convicted of anything related to treason.

[teachercd]

8 minutes ago, ZRod said:

What are you arguing here? As I pointed out before, you can't just say someone committed treason and now they are forever barred from holding office. That makes no sense. They need to be convicted and found guilty, or as the clause says; confess their guilt in open court. The punishment for treason isn't spelled out in the Constitution, it's spelled out in the justice code which is where the penalty of barring from office can be found (written by Congress) along with the other punishments. We have due process for a reason, and this case isn't any different.

 

Addressing your last paragraph, that would be an extraordinary circumstance. I would think the supreme Court would work to expedite the trial, and if found guilty punishments would be retroactive regarding offices. I didn't read the Colorado judge's opinion, but I really don't think it holds much weight given that Trump has not been convicted of anything related to treason.

This is why we have people that are (hopefully) smarter and more level headed than "us"

 

Like...I think if you talk about how great skinheads are you should be put to death.  BUT just because I think that type of speech is wrong, doesn't mean that someday, someone in power could say something that I say is wrong.  

 

So while I understand his/her thoughts, they are clearly wrong, even though I get it.

[Moiraine]

5 hours ago, Scarlet said:

 

I'm saying that section 3 doesn't require the threshold to be "convicted of insurrection" before being barred from running for office.  Historical it hasn't been applied that way. I have a hard time believing that the authors, if they had intended that the threshold be conviction of insurrection, would not have spelled that out.  

 

If it required conviction what would happen in a situation where the participation in an insurrection was undertaken so closely to the election that a conviction wasn't possible?  The district court judge in Colorado found that he participated in an insurrection.  It's a dead amendment now with the way court ruled so why even have it?  

 

Can you explain how it's a dead amendment? I haven't read the argument.

We haven't had your what if. We can't just force people off ballots because we say they did something. Trump needs to be convicted of something relevant; something related to Jan. 6 or sharing classified docs,, etc.

[Moiraine]

4 hours ago, Born N Bled Red said:

At what point does he have to be ruled out due to the extreme number of high profile high stakes law suits he is involved in? How could he possibly serve as president and give it the time and attention necessary to perform the job while he is giving depositions and defending his fraud and SA nearly every day. 

 

At what point does the extreme amount of debt he's incurred due to losing said lawsuits create a situation in which he cannot possibly serve without it being a conflict of interest, an outright disregard of the emoluments clause, and the risk of selling the office of the presidency to the highest bidder? 

 

And to your point Archy, yes it was a unanimous court decision. Again, the left wing of the court stayed true to its principles, while the right wing did an about face destroying their own precedent they set in Bush v. Gore, in which the conservative majority ruled that the Federal Govt. had no power to tell states what to do in regard to elections, federal or other. 

I don't understand the first 2 paragraphs, but agree on the 3rd. The conservative justices for the most part just do what helps Republicans in the fleeting moment and aren't paying attention to the logic of the law or whether they're flipping precedent on its head.

[Scarlet]

3 hours ago, Moiraine said:

Can you explain how it's a dead amendment? I haven't read the argument.

We haven't had your what if. We can't just force people off ballots because we say they did something. Trump needs to be convicted of something relevant; something related to Jan. 6 or sharing classified docs,, etc.

 

 

"And in the course of unnecessarily deciding all of these questions when they were not even presented by the case, the five-Justice majority effectively decided not only that the former president will never be subject to disqualification, but that no person who ever engages in an insurrection against the Constitution of the United States in the future will be disqualified under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Disqualification Clause — as the concurrence of Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson witheringly explain"

[Scarlet]

5 hours ago, ZRod said:

What are you arguing here? As I pointed out before, you can't just say someone committed treason and now they are forever barred from holding office. That makes no sense. They need to be convicted and found guilty, or as the clause says; confess their guilt in open court. The punishment for treason isn't spelled out in the Constitution, it's spelled out in the justice code which is where the penalty of barring from office can be found (written by Congress) along with the other punishments. We have due process for a reason, and this case isn't any different.

 

.

Here's the 14th Amendment, section 3.  I'm not sure why you're bringing treason into this.  It doesn't address treason.  It also doesn't say anything about conviction or confessing in an open court.  My original point was that the way the court ruled it makes it virtually impossible for an insurrectionist to be barred from holding office if the insurrectionist's party holds Congress, even with a conviction or confession of insurrection.  If Trump was convicted do you see the current Congress barring him from holding office?  That doesn't make a lot of sense either. 

 

https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/amendment-14/section-3/

 

"No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability."

 

Quote

Addressing your last paragraph, that would be an extraordinary circumstance. I would think the supreme Court would work to expedite the trial, and if found guilty punishments would be retroactive regarding offices. I didn't read the Colorado judge's opinion, but I really don't think it holds much weight given that Trump has not been convicted of anything related to treason.

 

Is it really an extraordinary circumstance?  Jan 6th was over three years ago and it appears that there's a pretty good chance that Trump won't be tried before the election.  

 

 

[Lorewarn]

5 hours ago, ZRod said:

The punishment for treason isn't spelled out in the Constitution, it's spelled out in the justice code which is where the penalty of barring from office can be found (written by Congress) along with the other punishments. We have due process for a reason, and this case isn't any different.

 

 

re: the bolded, that's severely understating it:

 

"Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States."

[ZRod]

4 hours ago, Scarlet said:

Here's the 14th Amendment, section 3.  I'm not sure why you're bringing treason into this.  It doesn't address treason.  It also doesn't say anything about conviction or confessing in an open court.  My original point was that the way the court ruled it makes it virtually impossible for an insurrectionist to be barred from holding office if the insurrectionist's party holds Congress, even with a conviction or confession of insurrection.  If Trump was convicted do you see the current Congress barring him from holding office?  That doesn't make a lot of sense either. 

 

https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/amendment-14/section-3/

 

"No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability."

 

 

Is it really an extraordinary circumstance?  Jan 6th was over three years ago and it appears that there's a pretty good chance that Trump won't be tried before the election.  

 

 

I'm all out of whack. I was referencing Article 3 section 3. Not the 14th Amendment, but I think my point still stands. You can't just say someone is a traitor, insurrectionists, etc and have it be so. There has to be some official proceeding with due process. Who determines who has engaged in insurrection? In this case Title 18 U.S. Code 2383 would be the enforce code for insurrection under the criminal justice code.

 

Again to your last paragraph, blame Merrick Garland and the court system.