If Prosecuting Trump Sets a 'Dangerous' Precedent--So Does Letting His Crimes Slide

[babylonsister]

https://www.thedailybeast.com/if-prosecuting-trump-sets-a-dangerous-precedent-so-does-letting-his-crimes-slide?ref=home


Opinion
If Prosecuting Trump Sets a ‘Dangerous’ Precedent—So Does Letting His Crimes Slide
BUCK STOPS HERE
Stop bowing to threats of right-wing violence—it’s time for the institutions of constitutional democracy to make their stand.
Nicholas Grossman
Updated Aug. 27, 2022 2:25AM ET / Published Aug. 26, 2022 10:42PM ET


America is grappling with an unprecedented choice: Should we, or should we not, indict an ex-president?

The Jan. 6 Committee has shown a ton of evidence that former President Donald Trump and various accomplices committed conspiracy to defraud the United States when he tried to stay in power after losing re-election. The FBI search of Mar-a-Lago—and Trump’s many shifting, contradictory excuses—indicate he likely committed felonies regarding the removal and concealment of national defense material, and obstruction of justice.

The legal answer, the one from rule of law, is straightforward. Prosecutors have ample evidence of serious criminal activity. The government has a legitimate interest in deterring a repeat of these crimes (especially the coup-related ones). No one is above the law, not even the person who was once the most powerful in the world.

snip//

American institutions—courts, military, and though it was a close call, Congress—overcame Trump’s scheming, upheld the rule of law, and got him out of office. But he kept lying, plotting, and committing more crimes. In response, prosecutors filing charges in criminal court based on evidence acquired in a well-predicated, legally authorized federal investigation is what passing this ongoing stress test would look like.

This is the moment for the institutions of Constitutional democracy to make their stand. Trump’s bluff must be called. Ours is a government of laws, not of men.

Jan. 6 was the warning. The United States doesn’t have to wait for another.

[FarPoint]

1. It will be most interesting when he is indicted...

I am mystified as to actually how will they, the DOJ " contain this man". Does he get bail; where ill he satay, will there be a gag order and how can we enforce it....?????

Then, if convicted... Where do they house him? He does have knowledge of national security secrets and a band of minions who will want to free him.... Mara-Largo....not an option...just by location it is a bad security risk to contain him.

So...what say you DU'ers?

[NJCher]

3. Re gag order

I like the idea of a faraday cage.

As messed up as his brain is, though, it might make him sane.

[Irish_Dem]

8. MAL might be a location for home detention.

It already has all kinds of security upgrades paid for by the US taxpayer. SS could still protect him in accordance with the law.

How we enforce it I don't know.

It is highly unlikely he will go where he belongs. Life in Supermax prison, no parole, 23 hour a day solitary confinement.

I think the best we can hope for is home detention. Unless the DOJ can swing public mood more.

[COL Mustard]

16. I don't think we'll ever see a former President in prison

Gen pop? Knifed in a minute. SHU? As a short term thing, but long-term it has bad effects on people and would probably be cruel and unusual. I'm afraid home confinement is probably the most we can hope for. I would love to see it so restrictive that it would shut him up and keep him out of the system for however long the term was. The isolation would drive him nuts. But hey, he could actually get a tan...not the spray on kind. And I'd love to see his induction picture. That would be the last pic of him I'd ever want to see.

[Irish_Dem]

22. Col I agree.

At this point in time, home detention is the most we can hope for realistically.

Yes it would be necessary to be restrictive so he cannot continue to incite violence.
And not sell secrets to enemies.

[dchill]

31. How about Elba?

[dchill]

30. Just need to build a big, beautiful wall around it.

That's where I always thought the Wall should go.

[Irish_Dem]

33. Yes seriously, a wall should be built around his home detention site.

[FoxNewsSucks]

40. Hopefully he'll be convicted of a capital crime

then we won't have to worry about him, his big mouth, or the costs of imprisoning him.

[Irish_Dem]

42. I think he will settle before trial.

He will agree to not run again, something like that.

[FoxNewsSucks]

45. Probably.

I hope the DoJ insists on prosecution, with no deals like that.

I think that's the kind of deal gotten by batshit-crazy Michelle Bachmann. When faced with election finance charges, she agreed to "retire" and they let her off the hook.

In her case, she's apparently content to live off her $250k "farm subsidies" and whatever else she saved while grifting, as she's been pretty quiet.

MF45 would not. He needs to be punished and his ability to motivate crazy people needs to be neutralized.

[Irish_Dem]

48. If Trump had gone quietly, his crimes would have been covered up.

If he had not damaged the GOP brand, and cost McConnell some of his power base, everything would have been taken care of for him. FBI would quietly take the classified documents. The American public would never have been told about the national security risks, etc.

I think the DOJ will consider a deal. Would save a public circus and possible violence.

[COL Mustard]

51. We can't possibly take him at his word

After all, we know he never pays his bills and never honors a promise to anyone.

[Irish_Dem]

52. Right, there would have to be a big incentive for him to comply.

Otherwise we have no way to make him comply with an agreement.

[wnylib]

61. I don't know if it is legal, but I think that he should lose

his SS protection when convicted.

What about the difficulty of monitoring such a huge complex as MAL, with its multiple buildings and tunnels? When prisoners are confined to a prison, they don't get housekeepers, cooks, gardeners, and groundskeepers. Most people, when in house confinement, do not have such huge properties where they could receive visitors as house guests. I can easily see him making his confinement into a money maker, charging people as guests when they visit him.

I would prefer to see him in a confinement facility of some kind where he can be very closely monitored. Someone like Trump would continue contacts with co-conspirators and allies, still spreading false claims and stirring up conspiracies and violence. He needs to be in a confinement setting that does not allow him to do further harm to the nation. His guards would have to be vetted carefully to be sure that they would not help him escape or continue his dangerous security activities.

I'm thinking of Napoleon confined to an island. Something like that for Trump seems best, IMO.

[Irish_Dem]

63. I don't think Trump's SS will ever be taken away.

I also think the best bet right now is indictment and Trump making a settlement prior to trial.

I agree with what you would like to see.

I would like to see him in Supermax like Robert Hanssen.
Life sentence, no parole, and 23 hour a day solitary confinement.

Neither one of our wishes will probably happen.

[wnylib]

64. Probably right that our desired outcomes for Trump

will not happen.

But, for the sake of national security and the safety of the nation, he has to be closely controlled somehow.

Posters here have joked about Gitmo, but it would be an ideal solution. Or some equivalent.

[Irish_Dem]

65. Oh yes, safety, security, saving our democracy and maintaining superpower status.

Something must be done.

We cannot be a nation of laws and superpower when we act like a third world banana republic.
We have no moral high ground.

[Rebl2]

24. Leavenworth?

[TheBeam19]

35. He'll be released but with a gag order.

Then it’s his choice as to whether he goes to jail while awaiting trial.

But there is a nagging thought that I have every time when I think of this topic: has there ever been a bigger flight risk? (I have not researched this — where he could go, who would take him, etc. — but it just seems to me if there is an opportunity he will take it.)

[COL Mustard]

54. There are a lot of places he could go without worrying about extradition

Russia is at the top of the list. There are several other places he could go and be relatively comfortable, should he so choose.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extradition_law_in_the_United_States

[Jarqui]

2. I still feel strongly that pardoning Nixon was a mistake. ..nt

[Justice matters.]

17. His own republican VP replacing him as POTUS issued the preemptive pardon...

And the guilty guy accepted it...

[calimary]

34. Well, the voters back then thought so, too.

All you had to do was say three words: “he pardoned Nixon” and there went another vote - away from him and over to Jimmy Carter.

People were still pissed that Ford let Nixon get away with it, with no punishment whatsoever.

[FoxNewsSucks]

38. I'm still pissed off about it.

Think what could have been avoided since then if Nixon and everyone he conspired with were adequately punished.

[evolves]

55. THIS was the precedent.

If nixon had been prosecuted, we would absolutely not be in the situation in which we find ourselves. It showed the criminals in the GOP that they would get a free pass to continue their crimes, which they did:

A. Treasonous collusion with the Iranian government to assure that the hostages would be held until after the 1980 election
B. Iran-Contra
C. Theft of the 2000 election from Gore
D. bush II admin filled with the former nixon criminals (cheney, rumsfeld, weinberger, etc)
E. Said former nixon criminals orchestrating the disastrous "war on terror" in Iraq and Afghanistan
F. Theft of the 2016 election with the assistance of putin
G. Now apparently outright sale of our national secrets to our enemies with disastrous compromise of national security.

If trump is not prosecuted, it is over. They will take it all and twist it into authoritarianism; they are already more than halfway there.


The Second Coming
BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

[RKP5637]

4. The answer is: Trump should have the book thrown at him and face all consequences!

Letting this sociopathic narcissistic con artist walk away sets the stage for the future government of the US, that anything goes.

[JohnSJ]

5. Letting an ex president get away with trying to overthrow the government is a worse Precedent.

Overturning Row v Wade, whittling away at voting rights, refusing to let the first African American President appoint his SC nominee, illegally taking top secret documents home, Comey disobeying the AG and sending a letter to republicans in congress 11 days befor e a general election, etc, etc, etc, and a dozen other Precedents that should never happened.

F**k Precedent

[Progressive dog]

6. Trump will be indicted

but it is important to keep pushing just in case.

[Ponietz]

7. MF45 needs to be in protective custody awaiting trial

There is no friendship between Rasputin and Pisswig as existed between Hitler and Mussolini. What does Russia most want if their top agent/useful idiot is sidelined? Chaos in the US, and there are too many fucking Russians in the country as it is. Malignant foreign entities, I don’t know, a de Rothschild perhaps, will kill him before the law can take it’s course or he turns (and we all know he will if it can save his sorry existence from long-term incarceration.)

[Irish_Dem]

9. If Trump has no consequences, the job of POTUS will be prime criminal territory.

Every conman in the country will vie for the job. And they will be even worse than Trump since they have learned from his mistakes.

We also will fall from superpower status. We will be a third world banana republic.

[Tommymac]

10. It has been since Richard Nixon was pardoned. No one has taken criminal advantage until TFG

That door was opened 50 years ago.

Not surprisingly, TFG is the first to use his fat ass to hold it open.

Lock Them all up.

[Irish_Dem]

11. There was some personal criminal advantage along the way.

As Vice President, Cheney orchestrated an illegal invasion which profited him greatly.

His company Halliburton made $40 BILLION in Iraqi war related contracts.

Cheney also outed a CIA officer Valerie Plame, endangering her life.

Cheney wanted to move into other mideast countries but was quietly stopped by the GOP elite.

Bush was pressured to disconnect from Cheney and Cheney's assistant was made a scapegoat and sent to jail
as a lesson to Cheney.

But yes of course, no one has committed as many serious crimes as Trump.

[area51]

14. Sad to say,

we're already third world as healthcare is a luxury item and not a right in exchange for our taxes.

[Irish_Dem]

18. Yes we do not have the same benefits as the rest of modern countries.

Pay, vacation, education, healthcare, etc etc.

Our money goes to corrupt politicians and greedy oligarchs.

[Duppers]

12. K & R whole thread.

Including all replies.

He must not be allowed to walk free. Period.

He is a threat to democracy.

[CentralMass]

13. He is greased pig. Too slippery to hold on to. I hope the DOJ has a good grip

[Katinfl]

15. He got his passports back

I think he will flee the US. Who/what would prevent him from leaving?

[Justice matters.]

19. He is being closely watched (secretly). eom

[G2theD]

60. Let him go as long as he is prevented from ever coming back.

[Irish_Dem]

20. If Trump goes free, the US is run by corrupt politicians and greedy oligarchs.

With racist ignorant voters.

The US loses its moral high ground.

[TNNurse]

21. Someone needs to explain to me

where in the Constitution it says ANYONE is above the law.

[paleotn]

27. We've been stretching and mangling that concept for a while now....

Just in recent memory.

- Nixon campaign's back channel deals with the North Vietnamese during the '68 campaign. Logan Act violation.
- Nixon's eventual pardon for other crimes.
- Reagan campaign's back channel deals with Iran during the '80 campaign. Another Logan Act violation.
- Iran Contra. Reagan and the "brain trust" walked free.
- Iraq War. Bush, Cheney, Powell, Rice, Rumsfeld and others walked after their lies resulted in the deaths of ~ 4,500 American service personnel and countless others.
- The 2008 financial meltdown. Most of the fraudsters were never charged and are still in business perpetuating other frauds.

Past time we stopped ignoring the core precepts of rule of law.

[TNNurse]

47. Thanks, but that is a truly depressing response.

[paleotn]

56. Granted. Sorry. But we have an opportunity to atone for past sins.

Let's hope our Justice dept. does just that.

[TNNurse]

57. Wish we could do more than hope.

[paleotn]

23. If Donnie isn't punished, the Republic is essentially finished.....

It's only a matter of time before someone with a lot more wherewithal takes full control and the US becomes the richest neo-totalitarian state on earth. A hybrid of China and Russia, but essentially the same. The latest great test on whether a people can in fact rule themselves. If we fail, European nobility was right back in the late 18th century. Just a bit off on the timing of our collapse.

[randr]

25. Not to prosecute would be a crimial act

I would be aiding and abetting a crime.
The Presidency and all elected offices are temporary positions. This is temp help we are talking about, not friggin royalty.

[Rebl2]

26. Title of this post

Says it all. If they let his crime slide it will be the end of our democracy.

[Uncle Joe]

28. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread babylonsister.

[yourmovemonkey]

29. I have a suggestion

Perhaps San Clemente island?

Anyone old enough to remember the significance might agree.



https://www.google.com/maps/place/San+Clemente+Island/@33.0585411,-118.7863986,8.67z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x80dd91dd80cadf5d:0x13c12886751f8cd5!8m2!3d32.9028812!4d-118.4980744

[PAMod]

32. Trump is the dangerous precedent.

We’ve always had fascists, and nut-jobs, but letting them into the executive is the problem.

[Peregrine Took]

36. 'Can't WAIT until September and the Hearings begin again. Wow!

I've always loved fall so much.

The changing color of the trees, the cool weather for better sleeping, cuddling by the fire, candles lit and soon watching the FREAKING J6 hearings!!

As Elie Mystel just said this morning "What does it take to get this guy in jail??"

[G2theD]

37. Not indicting makes a mockery of our system of justice.

It would only make the situation more dangerous and TFLG and his worshipers more emboldened.

It would finally confirm to everyone that some people don’t have to play by the rules all the rest of us do.

Not a great move.

[FoxNewsSucks]

39. Not prosecuting is a far worse thing

As said in every post here, MF45 and all involved MUST face appropriate consequences. Including the death penalty for some.

[flying_wahini]

41. The first thing the DOJ needs to do is secure the information coming out of talk Hate radio.

Bannon needs to be locked up 5 months before the election by June, anyway) so that he isn’t spewing bad info and inciting a civil war. Yes, I know he isn’t the only one but he is a good start and already convicted.
And do Flynn, too while they are at it. He is a spy for other countries and confessed only to retract later.
Lock Jared up for espionage too. Not just because he is a shit weasel but he is a conman
just like Trump.

I’m sure that the DOJ is 25 steps ahead of everyone else on it.
Garland didn’t go thru all this to let Trump walk. It’s a bridge too far. The damage is too deep & wide and affects our national security.

[Joinfortmill]

50. Yup, I would bet good money the DOJ is on this. They will GET THEIR MAN.

[GoCubsGo]

43. Letting them slide would be infinitely worse.

Letting that fucking traitor walk would just give a green light to more of the same, or worse.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

44. If the average citizen took 1 of those documents, how long would they be left to walk free?

[WiVoter]

46. The RW Sure Is Pushing That Narrative, Hard

[Joinfortmill]

49. I think Merrick Garland has made his decision & Joe Biden agrees that...

NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW.

[spanone]

53. K&R

[RANDYWILDMAN]

58. Lock him up

and throw away the key !

[gulliver]

59. The threats of violence or civil unrest aren't the biggest danger

The biggest danger is that he gets acquitted by Trumpies on juries or pardoned, say, by Kemp in Georgia. Trump already broke the impeachment mechanism of the Constitution. Republican Senators simply didn't do their duties. The same can happen with the criminal justice system. He even has ringers at the top of the civil court system (SCOTUS), although I don't like his odds as much there.

[G2theD]

62. If the right-wing nutjobs fight let the national guard put them down HARD!

Make an example of them, ala the one shot in the capitol. Show them you aren’t playing around !

[Solly Mack]

66. K&R