Trump Resignation Deal

[justabubba]

Great minds think alike!

of course we do. Beaudreaux and i are from the same part of G_d's country

 

[justabubba]

In a vacuum:
What does one have to do with the other? He can resign any time he wants, no one is gonna stop him.
If he wants to cooperate with prosecutors, he may get a deal for Jr., just like Flynn did for his kid.
Trump can work with the system that exists, why would they need to carve out some special deal where he simply resigns, to get him and his family out of all legal trouble, some of which may have helped him steal the 2016 election that caused all the problems in the first place? No kid gloves for Trump, he has obstructed and avoided cooperation, I think he should be treated in kind, just like any one of us.

In reality:
He has near presidential immunity, and pardon power, and he's dumb enough to abuse both to flee justice. In theory he could also resign and get everyone pardoned, but that's a choice Pence would have to make, and he may not be so inclined...it's a gamble. He could pardon everyone, and fight it out, but he'd risk indictment out of office. If a Democrat won in 2020, he'd be flapping in the wind potentially. Can he pardon himself?
Because of these extraordinary circumstances, that a sitting President has enough power to steal a presidential election through criminal activity in cooperation with a foreign adversary, and can get away with it....they may indeed try to craft such a deal.

Regardless, we should fix the presidency for future generations to ensure that:
- the president fears breaking the law like everyone else

[how is that done? explicitly prohibit a self-pardon? compel testimony when subpoenaed by DOJ? specify that a president can be indicted while in office?]

- the president's pardon powers are limited

[in what ways? exclude immediate family from eligibility?]

- legitimate oversight of a president is not dependent on who has a majority in congress

[how would this be done where the minority party could initiate actions against a sitting president? i can only begin to imagine the partisan rancor this would create]

- Senate can't **** over a president by refusing to allow nomination hearings on their court picks

[if the senate has the votes to defeat a nominee, why does that nominee deserve to be publicly evaluated prior to a down vote by the majority? wasn't Garland spared that humiliation?]

- Presidential candidates have to undergo an extensive FBI background check prior to being eligible to be a presidential candidate.

[and what findings would make a candidate ineligible for nomination? would the findings be made public or kept secret? who decides what constitutes ineligibility?]

- nepotism in the White House is more restricted

[to what extent? such that it would have prohibited bobby kennedy from serving under president kennedy? JQ Adams from serving under president adams? Eleanor from being the genius behind the FDR presidency?]

i would add two others:
1. the president MUST divest his personal financial holdings into a BLIND trust as a condition to accept the oath of office; and
2. the president must disclose the last 10 years of personal federal tax returns upon receiving the nomination of his party prior to his name being added to the presidential ballot

 

[justabubba]

Hum. Intent, but not the letter. He was very slick about his testimony, asking for definitions of what they specifically were asking. Ken Starr defined sex in a very narrow definition, which precluded oral sex as part of sex. So, technically, when Bill Clinton said he did not have have sex with Monica Lewinsky, he technically was telling the truth. On the other hand, that kind of deflection avoided the spirit of the question.

as bill insisted,

eatin' ain't cheatin'

 

[Xelor]

In other words, you are fine with Trump resigning, even if he did nothing legally wrong.

• Legally wrong --> You're remark above equivocates on the ambiguity of "legally wrong." "Legally wrong" is a lay term, but as goes the law, one is either criminally/civilly culpable for one's behavior or one is not. To be thus culpable, one must:
  • Commit an unlawful act, an actus reus.
  • Where required by statute, have committed it with mens rea, intent.
  • In a court of law, be found/deemed, or admit to being, guilty of having illegally acted and done so in a culpable way.

Is the legal standard of culpability what you mean by "done nothing legally wrong?"​

• 
  [*=1]Plenty of folks commit actus rei, whereafter scrutiny reveals they did so in a way that isn't legally culpable; accordingly, they can be said to have "done nothing legally wrong."
  [*=1]Other people commit actus rei without their behavior being discovered and, in turn, investigated to determine whether they committed it in a legally culpable way. Such folks indeed have behaved illegally, but because their deed(s) aren't discovered (reported), the public doesn't know of it; thus the actors can be said to have done nothing "legally wrong."
  [*=1]Lastly, some folks' deeds land them in a court of law and they are found not-guilty; those people too can be said to have done nothing "legally wrong."

If you're using the legal standard, the only way to know whether one may have done something criminally/civilly culpable is to, at the very least, investigate the person's behavior and the circumstances pertaining to it and the actor(s), and it may require going to trial. Do you object to the application of such scrutiny? If that too is your stance, you're tacitly asserting that where there's no "smoking gun" identifying who performed an unlawful act, there should be no investigation to determine who committed it. Though you can be of that mind, the reality is that applying that principle would result in many legally culpable acts, and almost no so-called white collar crime, being investigated and/or prosecuted, to say nothing of perps being convicted.​

• Is legal culpability the standard of comportment and mindset to which you hold folks who hold the highest public trust jobs in the land?
  
  Maybe it is, but I can assure you that bar is well below the one to which myriad professionals -- doctors, lawyers, accountants, engineers, nurses, corporate execs/managers, financial advisors, and many others -- are held. All those professions have professional ethics standards, and indeed, so too do governments. One is that one avoid the appearance of impropriety. The essence of that standard is that the question of whether one may have done something wrong shouldn't even come up; thus one is obliged not to do things that so much as give observers casual cause to even think one may have violated any standards of conduct -- legal or ethical.
  
  To hold someone accountable only to the bar of legal culpability is to, in effect, say that one can do "whatever" and look "shady as hell" doing it, but so long as one can "by hook, crook or otherwise" avoid being found/deemed guilty in a court of law, the behavior is okay.
• Sometimes people resign from their jobs without having done something "legally wrong," and sometimes they resign because they did something legally wrong, and other times, they don't resign despite having done something "legally wrong."

 

[lwf]

If it was so compelling then Mueller should have gotten Trump a long time ago. Everything else is just your fantasy.

This assumes that Mueller hasn't already found enough to indict him. The fact that Trump has yet to be indicted is not evidence that there isn't already more than enough to indict. There is no time limit on criminal investigations other than any applicable statutes of limitations. So long as any possible statute of limitations hasn't passed, you can't infer anything about the outcome of a criminal investigation. In fact, the more crimes an individual commits, and the more co-conspirators he has, the longer the investigation can be expected to take.

The length of the collusion investigation and Donald Trump's current status as a free man is evidence of nothing. If one were to speculate, it is reasonable to conclude that the longer the investigation takes, the more likely there is something of substance being investigated. An investigation that is nothing more than a fishing expedition is highly unlikely to last as long as Mueller's investigation has, and would have been shut down by the Republican AG a long time ago.

 

[Mach]

[how is that done?

It wouldn't be written randomly in the internet by me, that's for sure. I'm seeing big problems, and I think they should be looked at by far smarter people, hopefully when all is said and done we do get some changes.
We had plenty of changes post-Nixon.

explicitly prohibit a self-pardon? compel testimony when subpoenaed by DOJ? specify that a president can be indicted while in office?]

Possibly some or all. That's why I left it general...there are issues, and they should be addressed. Some may be solvable, some may not, all are concerning to me.

[in what ways? exclude immediate family from eligibility?]

For starters, the idea of prohibiting pardons if its for people indicted in an investigation POTUS is also being investigated under....you know, the little things.

[how would this be done where the minority party could initiate actions against a sitting president? i can only begin to imagine the partisan rancor this would create]

It doesn't have to just be just Congress. The idea that there is little recourse should the party control presidency/house/senate, is the issue. It's a problem. How would it create more partisan rancor than we had with Republicans attacking Hillary/Obama 24/7 because they held a majority and were of the opposing party? Or the 24/7 defense of Trump from Nunes and the House morons...not calling witnesses back if they lied under oath, not subpoenaing anyone, etc? Right now they have nearly unfettered power...they are also nearly immune from criminal acts if they are acting legitimaitenly as part of congress...no. I don't think "congress" is necessarily the answer.
For example:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_of_no_confidence
As Fearandloathing told me once, their elected leaders fear their citizens. Trump doesn't fear anyone, because he doesn't have to.

[if the senate has the votes to defeat a nominee, why does that nominee deserve to be publicly evaluated prior to a down vote by the majority? wasn't Garland spared that humiliation?]

" Republican leaders claimed that the vacancy should not be filled until after the next presidential election"
Not sure what you mean by didn't have the votes, they didn't even hold hearings to discuss his qualifications.

[and what findings would make a candidate ineligible for nomination? would the findings be made public or kept secret? who decides what constitutes ineligibility?]

If they can't qualify for a top secret clearance, as determined by DOJ, they shouldn't be allowed to be commander in chief. Of course it would be kept as secret as all such things are, and accessibly by congress.

[to what extent? such that it would have prohibited bobby kennedy from serving under president kennedy? JQ Adams from serving under president adams? Eleanor from being the genius behind the FDR presidency?]

Completely. There is no reason to allow it, there is more potential harm than good.

i would add two others:
1. the president MUST divest his personal financial holdings into a BLIND trust as a condition to accept the oath of office; and
2. the president must disclose the last 10 years of personal federal tax returns upon receiving the nomination of his party prior to his name being added to the presidential ballot

Maybe, I considered both but I figure if POTUS fears the citizens and can be held accountable by DOJ, and passes a top secret clearance, then I feel the issues that these things may bring about, are already kept in check and have recourse. But it wouldn't hurt to make it explicit, especially considering how bare-bones our current requirements are.

 

[Lursa]

Why would anyone answer that question at this stage? We don't have enough information to know what case/charges against Don, Jr. are likely and likely prosecutable.

Why not? Seems win-win.

Nobody's investigating Jr for murder and we'd be rid of The Donald.

Release the small fish to net the big fish (and flush him).

 

[Xelor]

Why not? Seems win-win.

Nobody's investigating Jr for murder and we'd be rid of The Donald.

Release the small fish to net the big fish (and flush him).

See post 32.

 

[Lursa]

Why not? Seems win-win.

Nobody's investigating Jr for murder and we'd be rid of The Donald.

Release the small fish to net the big fish (and flush him).

Still dont see anything to change my mind.

 

[Moderate Right]

Only in your delusional alt-right "reality"!:2rofll:

What crimes has he been found guilty of? What has he been indicted for? Who's got the delusional reality?

 

[Moderate Right]

ABSO****INGLUTELY!


of course. if the president chooses to abdicate that is his decision

and i hope Mueller finds him to have clean hands ... altho i do not believe that will be the ultimate determination


small price to pay. the public already knows junior is a prevaricating weasel. his future is dim no matter what Mueller finds

Can we say biased? So, you have stooped so low that you want a president who has done nothing wrong to resign?

 

[Moderate Right]

• Legally wrong --> You're remark above equivocates on the ambiguity of "legally wrong." "Legally wrong" is a lay term, but as goes the law, one is either criminally/civilly culpable for one's behavior or one is not. To be thus culpable, one must:
  • Commit an unlawful act, an actus reus.
  • Where required by statute, have committed it with mens rea, intent.
  • In a court of law, be found/deemed, or admit to being, guilty of having illegally acted and done so in a culpable way.

Is the legal standard of culpability what you mean by "done nothing legally wrong?"​

• 
  [*=1]Plenty of folks commit actus rei, whereafter scrutiny reveals they did so in a way that isn't legally culpable; accordingly, they can be said to have "done nothing legally wrong."
  [*=1]Other people commit actus rei without their behavior being discovered and, in turn, investigated to determine whether they committed it in a legally culpable way. Such folks indeed have behaved illegally, but because their deed(s) aren't discovered (reported), the public doesn't know of it; thus the actors can be said to have done nothing "legally wrong."
  [*=1]Lastly, some folks' deeds land them in a court of law and they are found not-guilty; those people too can be said to have done nothing "legally wrong."

If you're using the legal standard, the only way to know whether one may have done something criminally/civilly culpable is to, at the very least, investigate the person's behavior and the circumstances pertaining to it and the actor(s), and it may require going to trial. Do you object to the application of such scrutiny? If that too is your stance, you're tacitly asserting that where there's no "smoking gun" identifying who performed an unlawful act, there should be no investigation to determine who committed it. Though you can be of that mind, the reality is that applying that principle would result in many legally culpable acts, and almost no so-called white collar crime, being investigated and/or prosecuted, to say nothing of perps being convicted.​

• Is legal culpability the standard of comportment and mindset to which you hold folks who hold the highest public trust jobs in the land?
  
  Maybe it is, but I can assure you that bar is well below the one to which myriad professionals -- doctors, lawyers, accountants, engineers, nurses, corporate execs/managers, financial advisors, and many others -- are held. All those professions have professional ethics standards, and indeed, so too do governments. One is that one avoid the appearance of impropriety. The essence of that standard is that the question of whether one may have done something wrong shouldn't even come up; thus one is obliged not to do things that so much as give observers casual cause to even think one may have violated any standards of conduct -- legal or ethical.
  
  To hold someone accountable only to the bar of legal culpability is to, in effect, say that one can do "whatever" and look "shady as hell" doing it, but so long as one can "by hook, crook or otherwise" avoid being found/deemed guilty in a court of law, the behavior is okay.
• Sometimes people resign from their jobs without having done something "legally wrong," and sometimes they resign because they did something legally wrong, and other times, they don't resign despite having done something "legally wrong."

In other words, you think presidents should resign even if they are found to have committed no crimes?

 

[Moderate Right]

This assumes that Mueller hasn't already found enough to indict him. The fact that Trump has yet to be indicted is not evidence that there isn't already more than enough to indict. There is no time limit on criminal investigations other than any applicable statutes of limitations. So long as any possible statute of limitations hasn't passed, you can't infer anything about the outcome of a criminal investigation. In fact, the more crimes an individual commits, and the more co-conspirators he has, the longer the investigation can be expected to take.

The length of the collusion investigation and Donald Trump's current status as a free man is evidence of nothing. If one were to speculate, it is reasonable to conclude that the longer the investigation takes, the more likely there is something of substance being investigated. An investigation that is nothing more than a fishing expedition is highly unlikely to last as long as Mueller's investigation has, and would have been shut down by the Republican AG a long time ago.

It doesn't assume anything. It is a question. If Mueller finds that Trump has done nothing legally wrong, would you be OK with Trump resigning to save his son who, in this hypothetical, has done something legally wrong and is indicted. Would you be ok with that? Or, is it YOU who is assuming that Trump HAS done something legally wrong?

 

[Moderate Right]

Why not? Seems win-win.

Nobody's investigating Jr for murder and we'd be rid of The Donald.

Release the small fish to net the big fish (and flush him).

So, let's get this on the record, you would be ok with Trump resigning to save his son from prosecution, even if Trump himself is found by Mueller to have done nothing legally wrong?

 

[Xelor]

In other words, you think presidents should resign even if they are found to have committed no crimes?

I think what I wrote, not what you appear to think I wrote.

 

[independentusa]

Question for the left: Would you accept Trump's resignation, even if the Mueller probe finds he didn't violate any laws, in exchange for D Jr not being indicted for anything?

If he is not guilty of anything, then no resgnation.

 

[justabubba]

Can we say biased? So, you have stooped so low that you want a president who has done nothing wrong to resign?

can we instead say "responsive to the question"

check out what was asked ... to which i responded:

Question for the left: Would you accept Trump's resignation,

note to moderate right: the question was NOT has the president been found guilty of doing anything illegal warranting his resignation
instead, address what was actually posted rather than what you wish had been written

 

[Moderate Right]

can we instead say "responsive to the question"

check out what was asked ... to which i responded:


note to moderate right: the question was NOT has the president been found guilty of doing anything illegal warranting his resignation
instead, address what was actually posted rather than what you wish had been written

You did not answer the question fairly, all you did was answer a snippet of my post. How about taking all of the post in context and answering that instead of your biased drivel?

 

[Stealers Wheel]

In other words, you think presidents should resign even if they are found to have committed no crimes?

For the good of the party, the good of the country, the good of the world ... for whatever reason.

There has never been a person less prepared or less qualified to be president than Donald J Trump. There is nothing in his background that would qualify him to any position of government leadership. Further, he has demonstrated he has no interest in becoming competent or knowledgeable of the job. He does not seek or listen to competent counsel and he has demonstrated repeatedly that he cannot be trusted. To him, truth is irrelevant. Facts are unimportant. He has demonstrated no strength of character or moral fiber.

So, yeah, I'd be happier if he would resign the presidency.

Unfortunately, even if Trump were to leave, his base, that vile 30% of America, will remain. Those people who hold the principles of decency and honesty in contempt. These people know Trump is a lying weasel of a man, an adulterous leach, and they ignore these character flaws in him, some even celebrate them. When Trump declared he could shoot someone and not lose any votes, he was talking about these people. He was saying they do not care about the rule of law; they do not care about justice or decency. Trump knows his base well.

One way or another, eventually Trump will be gone, but his base will always be among us. And that is sickening.

 

[Lursa]

So, let's get this on the record, you would be ok with Trump resigning to save his son from prosecution, even if Trump himself is found by Mueller to have done nothing legally wrong?

yes

Lots of things are 'wrong' even if they arent illegal.

He's a terrible terrible, even dangerous, leader.

IMO he's not even a good human being.

 

[lwf]

It doesn't assume anything. It is a question. If Mueller finds that Trump has done nothing legally wrong, would you be OK with Trump resigning to save his son who, in this hypothetical, has done something legally wrong and is indicted. Would you be ok with that? Or, is it YOU who is assuming that Trump HAS done something legally wrong?

I would not be happy with that outcome. In general, I do not like plea deals that allow criminals to evade justice, however I understand the need for them in some cases. Trump's resignation might be the right move for this country, but not at the expense of allowing a criminal to avoid the consequences of his crimes.

If Mueller finds Trump has not committed any crimes and that his son has, I think it is inappropriate to allow Trump to resign from his job in exchange for leniency on his son. Should every father have that option?

In this scenario, I would approve of Trump being stripped of his pardon powers before his son is indicted on the basis of a conflict of interest. I think with the novel situation we're in, congress should pass a law that prohibits presidential pardons of immediate family members.

 

[straykatz]

Question for the left: Would you accept Trump's resignation, even if the Mueller probe finds he didn't violate any laws, in exchange for D Jr not being indicted for anything?

One would 1st have to believe that Trump would make a personal sacrifice for his son.

 

[Grokmaster]

No, this time there HAS to be consequences. Mueller will NOT find Trump innocent of wrongdoing. If people aren't indicted and tried, we've failed as a nation and it is just us circling the drain. We already know he's guilty of serious campaign violations, you guys keep using a false equivelency with Obama and Edwards, but neither situation is the same.

Then there's the overcharging on the inauguration, 40 million missing, and we KNOW Ivanka is guilty there (investigation ongoing), and we also know TRump Sr. knows everything that goes on, which makes him guilty as the rest of them. NO, people need to bleed here, if the rule of law is to mean a damn thing going forward.

Just becasue you're in denial of Trump's crimes does not make them go away.:roll:

Leftist madeup bull**** =/= crimes.

 

[justabubba]

You did not answer the question fairly, all you did was answer a snippet of my post. How about taking all of the post in context and answering that instead of your biased drivel?

from your demonstrated failure to comprehend what i posted about, i would instead encourage you to first focus on understanding what was written prior to commencing to scribble a reply

 

[Moderate Right]

For the good of the party, the good of the country, the good of the world ... for whatever reason.

There has never been a person less prepared or less qualified to be president than Donald J Trump. There is nothing in his background that would qualify him to any position of government leadership. Further, he has demonstrated he has no interest in becoming competent or knowledgeable of the job. He does not seek or listen to competent counsel and he has demonstrated repeatedly that he cannot be trusted. To him, truth is irrelevant. Facts are unimportant. He has demonstrated no strength of character or moral fiber.

So, yeah, I'd be happier if he would resign the presidency.

Unfortunately, even if Trump were to leave, his base, that vile 30% of America, will remain. Those people who hold the principles of decency and honesty in contempt. These people know Trump is a lying weasel of a man, an adulterous leach, and they ignore these character flaws in him, some even celebrate them. When Trump declared he could shoot someone and not lose any votes, he was talking about these people. He was saying they do not care about the rule of law; they do not care about justice or decency. Trump knows his base well.

One way or another, eventually Trump will be gone, but his base will always be among us. And that is sickening.

But but but Trump has been doing a great job! Of course liberals don't think so.