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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   38361 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 8, 2024

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Blackman points out that in light of Trump v. United States, the entire premise of this part two, all of the investigative work that went into it, all of the hoopla around whether it was enough to take down Trump, all of the effort to put forth a plausible case was all completely wasted and would have been nipped in the bud in hindsight had we had the appropriate long view. Directing subordinate Executive branch officials, firing them if desired, and wielding absolute prosecutorial discretion is a 'core' part of The Executive Power, and the President has unrestricted power and absolute immunity in such actions. "If Chief Justice Roberts is correct, Mueller should have never been appointed in the first instance," Blackman says.

The Mueller commission said outright they wouldn't indict a sitting President. The outcome given Trump v. US would have been the same; Trump's culpability would have still been a political question decided by impeachment. Just as it was for Andrew Johnson the first time Congress got tried to tell the President who they could and could not fire (and Johnson came a lot closer to losing)

I think there's a significant difference between, "We'll go through all the work of pursuing this as though it is plausibly a real, criminal violation of criminal statutes, write all about how it could indeed be a violation of specific, named, criminal statutes and a theory of how such a case could plausibly be constructed, but then decline to make a 'traditional prosecutorial determination'," and, "Oh come on, this clearly and obviously could not plausibly be a criminal matter, because this is a core Presidential power."

You're right that impeachment would still have been a matter of a purely political question, but it would have been vastly better if we sort of collectively realized that the entire Mueller business on this topic was bull honky, told him to close up shop, and just told Congress to do their own investigation and impeach if they want without the dog and pony show.

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