The former president — who is facing a mountain of legal woes — is trying to win back the White House on the idea that he should be above the law

Donald Trump isn’t happy that judges on a Washington, D.C., appeals court ruled that he’s not protected from prosecution in the Justice Department’s election interference case against him. The former president has long been claiming he should be immune from criminal repercussions for anything he did while in office — including conspiring to overturn the democratic process — and on Wednesday he posted to Truth Social that a president’s job is so contingent on their ability to commit crimes that it would mark the “end” of “our Country, as we know it,” if they are not afforded that right.

“If a President does not have Immunity, the Opposing Party, during his/her term in Office, can extort and blackmail the President by saying that, ‘if you don’t give us everything we want, we will Indict you for things you did while in Office,’ even if everything done was totally Legal and Appropriate,” Trump wrote, adding that “Obama, Bush, and soon, Crooked Joe Biden, would all be in PRISON. Protect Presidential Immunity. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

There’s no evidence that Bush, Obama, or Biden committed crimes while in office, but Trump is under heavy legal scrutiny for an array of potential crimes — most of them tied to his effort to remain in office despite losing to Biden. Trump tried to get the Justice Department’s case against him thrown out last year, alleging he could do no wrong because he was the president. Judge Tanya Chutkan shot down the bid, and Trump appealed, sending the case to the D.C. appeals court. In a hearing last month, Trump’s lawyers argued that immunity should go so far as to protect a president from prosecution even if they were to order SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a political rival.

  • YaksDC@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Does he not realize that if that right is codified before he’s president again that Biden could just turn around and have him executed without any repercussions. I don’t believe Biden would do that but it just shows that he is not thinking beyond the tip of his nose.

      • MotoAsh@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        See, that is EXACTLY how Democrats constantly fail…

        They think they’re Saturday morning cartoon Batman, unable to even kill one measly evildoer… How much faster would Gotham get better if there weren’t twenty evil masterminds allowed to run around and escape prison??

        Democrats are literally too ignorantly “good” to stand up to evil. They constantly do it on a legislative level, too. They CONSTANTLY let crooks set up traps for them instead of dealing with the crooks.

        Just like in any SANE world, Batman would be cheered for mercing terrorists like the Joker and the Riddler and Penguin et. al… In a sane world, Dems would be cheered for barring literel lifetime criminals from running for office…

          • MotoAsh@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            Yep! They’re the sort of morons who think signing things in to law magically stops bad people from trying. They’d sit there and shout about the loss of decorum while a terrorist shot every Democrat instead of simply shooting the shooter.

            They’re the sort of people to think Batman is wise for not being rid of evil people in an environment that has proven to be incapable of controlling them…

            • steakmeout@lemmy.world
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              5 months ago

              That process, the decorum you so richly despise is what keeps people from killing you for being such an ignorant loudmouth. People like you never think about the realities of a world where people kill without recourse and everything is an emotional knee jerk reaction with terminal consequences.

        • YaksDC@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          I think we would bar him from running for office if it were up to us and not a corrupt Court.

          • MotoAsh@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            The Dems could’ve done a whole lot to expedite the judicial process. When a normal person commits a high crime, they sit IN HOLDING while evidence is collected… Instead, Democrats want to conserve the unjust and unwritten privilege of politicians to avoid justice.

            As a result, they are allowing a literal mallicous traitor who literally sold top secret documents free to continue insurection planning. For years. Which lends credibility and legitimacy to the Republicans, even as they literally violate their oaths of office.

            The Dems are not powerless. The legislative and executive branches do not have to just sit there and watch the judiciary. The “checks and balances” are not one-way.

    • cranakis@reddthat.com
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      5 months ago

      I think he’s hoping the timing will work out so that he gets elected first, them SCOTUS grants him supreme immunity.

    • SinningStromgald@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Is this where we can debate who it would be okay and not okay for Biden to have wacked if this moronically does get codified? Or is that just an invitation to a lot of naughty lists that don’t have happy endings?

      • YaksDC@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        It opens us to purge lists under a less then scrupulous person. I think it would only be a decade before we reached Stalin levels.