In for a penny, in for a pound. There are some Republicans off grumbling in the shadows about how it’s time to cut bait with Donald Trump — if seeking to wrest oneself from the death grip of an anchor dragging you to the bottom of the ocean floor can be characterized as “cutting bait.” But no, says the rank and file of the GOP. We want to go down with the Trumptanic. We want to sit there on the ocean floor with the crabs and the lobsters staring at us and rattling their claws menacingly and mourn about the Shining City On A Hill — which this real estate phony turned into a tent city under a bridge — because we let him. In fact, we participated in our degradation and destruction every step of the way.
Mike Johnson is proposing a bill. The stated purpose of the bill is to “allow current or former presidents to move state-level charges against them into federal court.” This is so that Trump can get rid of his New York State conviction if he’s reelected. I have characterized it as 1. Immoral and 2. Illegal. I’ll tell you why I use those descriptors. It is nothing short of immoral to characterize a perfectly fair trial, which went through the legal process by the book, as “lawfare” or “coming out of the White House” when it’s not. Even Trump’s former lawyer, Tim Parlatore, went on TV and said that these descriptors were ridiculous and Joe Biden had nothing to do with the Manhattan hush money trial.
As to illegal, how can a bill be anything but illegal, if the very nature of the thing is to undermine the rule of law in this country? No, this is a very narrowly tailored bill brought to 1. validate Trump’s histrionics and conspiracy theories about his trial and 2. to play into his hands and allow him to self-pardon if and when he gets back in office.
Beyond that, it is a bill that shows the character of the people bringing it to the House floor, and they are pro-MAGA, pro-Trump and anti-American. There was not one thing wrong with the Manhattan trial or with the two civil cases brought before then, both of which Trump also handily lost. All this bill would do is whitewash the clear and obvious guilt of Trump. But then what would you expect from a party which is so utterly corrupt that it prefers to hang onto a convicted felon and adjudicated rapist as its standard bearer? Because that’s the best they’ve got? Axios:
Why it matters: Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) is under pressure from GOP hardliners to schedule a vote on the measure as part of a full-court press to defend Trump, so any difficulty locking down votes could once again put him in their crosshairs.
Driving the news: The bill would allow current or former presidents to move state-level charges against them into federal court. It’s in direct response to Trump’s conviction last week in New York.
- Johnson’s leadership team is making calls to whip support for the measure, the No More Political Prosecutions Act, according to two lawmakers and two other House GOP sources familiar with the conversations.
- But the bill might be a bridge too far for moderate Republicans, who have told Axios they would struggle to support it.
The big picture: Putting the bill forward for a vote is a demonstration of how fervently House Republican leadership wants to stand with Trump.
- House GOP leadership offered a uniform defense of Trump after his conviction, arguing the former president was the victim of a sham trial aimed at damaging his re-election bid.
- The measure would be part of a multi-pronged effort targeting the Justice Department that Johnson outlined to his conference earlier this week that also included increased oversight and funding cuts, according to a source in the room.
Between the lines:Â Presidents can only pardon federal convictions, meaning that even if he were to capture the White House again, Trump couldn’t do away with his New York conviction.
- The bill also could theoretically allow Trump to move state-level charges he is facing in Georgia to federal court, with the option to then issue a self-pardon if convicted.
This concept of self-pardon, God forbid we get to a place where we see if it is actually possible, makes no sense either in law or logic. How can you have a judge decide a case if that judge is a party to the case? It’s not a proposition that holds water. The pardon powers of the president are wide but I would not go so far as to assume that they allow a wrongdoer, let alone a convicted criminal wrongdoer, to just eradicate all of his past crimes and not be tried for any cases currently in the system. But we may find this out.
And it is by far not the only legal conundrum we face with Trump on the GOP ticket. Trump can’t conduct normal diplomatic relations because his criminal conviction bans him from 37 countries. Trump cannot legally possess a firearm — but he can possess the nuclear codes and control the nuclear arsenal. Trump does not qualify for any kind of a low level security clearance, but being president automatically confers a Top Secret clearance upon him.
And make no mistake, if this degenerate lunatic is returned to office, he’ll go for broke. He will sell our secrets, if not give them away. While Trump sings this song about how indictments help him and now how a conviction helps him, he knows full well that if either of the Jack Smith cases came to trial to prove his perfidity in either the January 6 insurrection or the classified documents case, that he would be toast. And likewise with the election fraud in Georgia. This is why he has moved heaven and earth to delay these trials. If he was, in fact, innocent he would have done the opposite.
Of the four criminal case, the hush money case was considered to be the weakest. And that may in fact be the case. But look at the damage it did. Look at the spectacle it was. And get ready. Because you’re going to see who and what Donald Trump really is — post election. He will lose, these cases will go forward, and America will find out everything we need to know. I only wish it could happen pre-election, but that it will happen at all is deeply satisfying.
Trump’s going down in flames and the GOP can do whatever feckless finagling and ludicrous legislating that they want. The man is done.
At the time we remember the 156,000 heroes that sacrificed everything to stop fascism, this fascist shows his true colors ONCE AGAIN. If this comes to violence in the end, he should be on the short list of fascists to face a reckoning. The evil pissant.
xtian is just another term for hypocrisy. con xtians/magats made xtianity more evil than the taliban, al queda, and boka haram combined.
A convicted felon is not allowed in today’s military.
“States’ rights” and “limited federal government” are two more traditional GOP principles that are now in the trash heap, along with law & order, family values, and respect for the military.