We do live in an intriguing world when we’re contemplating whether a candidate for the highest office in the land could pardon himself from a prison cell and we come up with a “yes, but.” The “yes, but” scenario is being explained by one of the candidates former attorneys, in this case Ty Cobb talking about Donald Trump. Yes, Trump could, theoretically at least, be convicted in the classified documents case that Jack Smith is overseeing, while he’s in the process of being elected. That is a possibility. And it’s also a possibility that Trump could be sentenced and then elected and then pardon himself — BUT, there is still the Alvin Bragg matter, which is a state court issue, and Trump can’t pardon himself from that.
Ergo, Trump could get to prison, use his Article II of the Constitution, Get Out Of Jail card, and then be nailed on the New York case.
Would any governance be going on in Washington while this was taking place. Puh-leeze. Look at what little took place during Trump’s years in office when none of this was yet on the table.
Hit this link to hear Ty Cobb holding forth.
What we know is that the judge in the New York state case in Manhattan, that Alvin Bragg is overseeing, has set a trial date of March 25, 2024. That would be a few months before the July 15-18 GOP convention. So presumably, the outcome of this matter would be determinative of Donald Trump’s future.
But then again, who knows? We are dealing with a whacky set of scenarios that we’ve never seen in politics before, where the front runner for the GOP ticket is facing a number of legal trials before anybody gets near a ballot box, and as his pet vanity project social media site goes under. Meanwhile, his closest challenger for the ticket is at war with Mickey Mouse and in bed with Elon Musk. These are not normal times.
Maybe Lindsey Graham should get back in and run for POTUS? Why not? That is actually looking like a sane and rational work around right now.
Thinking about how things have gotten, where we are and where things might go I had a flashback to several decades ago. Before “one & done” I was a college basketball fan. And any serious fan of our age when talking about the greatest college games ever played would include the 1992 Duke/Kentucky Regional Final on the short-list. It had an epic finish to be sure and the combination of the celebration of Duke and the devastation of Kentucky came through the TV screen like I was sitting there in the old Spectrum in Philly. At one point the camera focused on Duke’s Thomas Hill, standing there with as wide eyes as I’ve ever seen on someone, mouth wide open, face contorted with his hands on his head. A picture of him in that moment made the rounds. A writer from Sports Illustrated described it this way: If there is a place in the universe where horror and wonder circle around and meet Hill seemed to occupy that spot.
That was an ever so brief moment in time. It’s hit me that we’ve been living it ever since it became apparent in 2016 Trump was going to be the GOP nominee and that win or lose things would never be the same. That every change would be for the worse. And as bad as we thought the campaign would be for the country, and how much worse the country would be when he moved into the WH it turned out our wildest fears and nightmares didn’t come close.
We are stuck in that spot in the universe. I worry that we’ll be stuck there the rest of my (hopefully much longer) life and beyond.
Prisoners do not have the same rights, same constitutional rights, as ordinary citizens. This is why prisons are allowed to use prisoners as laborers and paying them little to nothing. The constitutional amendment prohibiting slavery does not apply because as prisoners and in fact prisoners are explicitly named as not being entitled to protection from slavery/forced servitude. They cannot vote and this extends to such a time after completing their sentences as whatever a state dictates. They are not allowed firearms and felons do not always get those rights back even after they serve their time. The first 10 amendments should be called privileges rather than rights since all of them can be taken away from you provided you have been given due process. After you are in prison very little of the constitution actually applies because you are no longer an ordinary citizen. You can pretty much consider the entire document a doc of privileges in fact.
Should the sh*t gibbon end up in a federal penitentiary and somehow win the 2024 election, he might not have the pardoning power available to him. Uncharted territory I know so I guess we might, hopefully not but, might see what happens.
BTW the slavery part should read: does not apply and in fact prisoners are explicitly…
Just call me an illiterate. Or at least someone who doesn’t always exercise his right to use the backspace/delete keys.