Trump Allies Try to Convince Supreme Court He'd Never Order Hit on Rival

jeffw@lemmy.world to politics @lemmy.world – 196 points –
Trump Allies Try to Convince Supreme Court He'd Never Order Hit on Rival
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Because his lawyer said that he was allowed to do it lol.

And I’m still trying to figure out why that lawyer was arguing that Biden should be allowed to assassinate Trump.

Because his client is claiming absolute immunity. So he has to hold that position even to the utmost absurd hypotheticals. If there is anything at all that isn't covered then the immunity is not absolute, and he's forced to argue degrees about which acts or crimes are covered. At that point the entire argument collapses as the result is quite obviously "at least some acts" and "at least many if not most crimes" are not covered by any sort of immunity. There's nowhere else to run with the argument.

Got himself stuck between a rock and a hard place.

“Should the president be allowed to perform abortions” hah gottem

Once the so-called "Supreme" court rules Biden can issue orders.

They know Biden won't do that.

This would be giving Biden absolute power. It's difficult to predict what any specific person would do in those circumstances.

There's a lot of evidence that Biden hasn't abused power when he's received it in the past, but imagine he's given absolute power, and then Trump wins the election. And then Trump threatens Biden and his entire family.

I don't know what Biden would do in that situation, but I know what I'd do.

I know what I hope Biden would do and what I would do. But I doubt he would do it.

Repubs have been wallowing in the mud for decades now. Dems are still trying to compromise and fantasize that they can work together. Biden would be urging the House to pass a "President is not immune" bill up until the Afternoon of the Long Knives on Jan. 20th, 2025.

I thought they were stalling the cases with the hope that he would get elected. THEN the absolute power will start.

Since Trump's criminal trials are already ongoing, politically, he needs to use this appeal to avoid convictions now, though. Many polls have said that a lot of people wouldn't vote for him if he's convicted. I suspect some percentage of those people were telling the truth.

He's stalling the cases to use a much more conventional political vehicle for getting himself off the hook - presidential pardons. The immunity claim is a hail-mary stall tactic and Trump's team knows that it's bogus, but they also know he doesn't need absolute immunity if he can just survive until November.

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Probably be cause that's a defacto power the executive branch has claimed and used since at least the Bush era.

claimed and used

Used? Really?

Yes. The US has on several occasions extra judicially killed American citizens without due process.

Ok but in context has it ever been used? Specifically to have a political opponent killed by a sitting US president?

Police (the government) kill people extra-judicially every day, which is different from the POTUS sending Seal Team 6 or whatever to kill their leading opponent for reelection

Yes & No we killed an American and his American son in Yemen. That made the news. Technically a terrorist is a political opponent; but it not necessarily a correlation here. The "more legitimate" examples are all with varying levels of conspiracy and they tend to be old because of the way information is disseminated. But things like JFK, RFK, MLK Jr., Malcom X, MOVE bombing etc... are all examples of the Hoover Era FBI exercising that power.

And we have rendition as a well known example of extrajudicial torture and murder of US citizens that we know has been used against Innocents in the past.

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