More of an OT discussion, but I wasn’t being facetious. It was a genuinely thought I had earlier 
The main purpose would be that you radically change the kind of person who even runs for the presidency when you know you’re going to get hauled off to be put on trial as soon as you get out. Wrt the congressional acts it was more of a leap: congress can do whatever it wants but the President can just choose not to enforce it. I imagine that applies to any future war crime legislation as well.
It’s not about Trump, it’s about what @gracchus above called the post-Gingrich GOP. Using every dirty trick in the book is their new normal and they absolutely will use specious indictments just to gnaw at the perceived legitimacy of democratic presidents.
Just to make this clear: I’m not saying don’t prosecute Trump. I know how easy it is to be mistaken for a Trumpian concern troll and there are probably some of those out there making this argument. What I am saying is that this will be a new era where every single Democratic president and those Republican ones that have actually committed crimes will have to expect to be prosecuted after leaving office. Which will probably mean even more of a scramble to appoint judges, even more politicisation of the judiciary and an even narrower range of candidate willing to go through all that. That said, Trump must be brought to justice and damn the torpedoes.
No? Maybe you were thinking of this scandal?
As much as I do love that incident, that wasn’t it. A look at Wikipedia says that he was the one who started off financial aid to the mujahideen. Maybe that’s what I was thinking of?
The mujahadeen were a ragtag band of rural fighters resisting an overwhelming invasion force at the time. Not exactly what you’d call “fascists” with a straight face. Just because they became the Taliban later doesn’t make that a scandal.
Support for Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war would be a better choice, but still not illegal.
Oh absolutely, that’s just what I think is the kernel from which my recollection threw out of. I guess that leaves 1 president alive who might get through the trial in a just world.
Of course it was a scandal. The CIA shouldn’t be in the business of funding wars and trying to overthrow governments. We sent funding PRIOR to Soviet involvement, in the hopes of getting them their very own Vietnam and it worked. The Mujaheddin were fighting against the Socialist Afghan government, in part for religious reasons. It’s always a scandal to get involved with internal political problems in other countries. It always hurts the people who live there. Because of this war, the people of Afghanistan have lived in decades of deprivation and insecurity. That was imposed from without, not within. The Carter government was the administration that started this.
Thank you for the perspective, @anon61221983! I didn’t know that. Well, crap. At least Jimmy’s built some houses since then.
I still love the work he’s done since he’s been out of office, but the project of American power is always problematic. 
Yes, but not the other way around; the president after Biden can’t decide on his or her own to create new laws that apply to Biden, it will take all of congress. If the GOP are still as fringey at that point as they are today, and if have that kind of control over both houses, then I don’t think a Biden administration having prosecuted or not prosecuted Trump will have much effect on their decision to go after Biden. This group does not believe in precedent.
Probably I’m being naive, but I believe that the GOP will revert to the pre-Trump, even pre-Obama levels after the election, which are nasty enough but not committed to completely dissolving the body politic. Even if I’m wrong, as you point out this is not a reason to not prosecute Trump for any crimes he has committed, but rather a reason to do so.
Yet.
He has shown time and time again that things like norms and tradition mean jack shit to him - and none of his supporters really seem to care all that much.
Since Barr’s ascendency, Trump has been actively getting rid of post-Watergate safeguards put in place to prevent weaponizing the DOJ for political gain. Barr himself has repeatedly undermined his own departments to benefit Trump’s agenda. The DOJ is supposed to be non-partisan and on the side of The People, not the executive, but that’s all out the window these days. From refusing to prosecute Trump’s buddies to actively trying to repeal the ACA, the DOJ is now just an enforcement arm of Trump’s ambitions.
I wouldn’t at all be shocked or surprised to see one or more FBI investigations being announced against Biden and/or Obama in the next couple of months with some list of ridiculous charges. This will of course be an overt attempt to shift the narrative away from Trump’s continued bungling of the coronavirus pandemic, and to hurt Biden’s chances in November. Trump is already floating the trial balloons for this with his ridiculous “Obamagate” bullshit as of late.
Nothing would suprise me but I highly doubt that will happen. We shal see.
What you mean the guilty dog crying “witch hunt for political reasons” might get a witch hunt off the ground for political reasons? Yeah… I’d bet money on that. Corruption is more rife than ever. I see little reason to expect anything else unless somehow they just bungle it completely.
Never say “Trump isn’t dumb enough to…” because time and time again he has proven tire adage wrong. About the only thing he didn’t do is fire Mueller, and that’s only because he got one of his toadies to completely sabotage him instead.
After Mueller dragged it out and gave time and cover for the WH to do more damage, only really came out with actionable charges against people the US justice system can’t touch and stuck within the ridiculously narrow confines.
The Mueller probe was never going to succeed in damaging Trump and now gets used to call any Russian interference as “conspiracy theory”.
I was creating a post expressly saying this but had to stop. We have to acknowledge that the US no longer has a shared experience in common. There is no set reality, no overarching set of facts that can provide a foundation for arriving at a common truth. You have your facts, I have mine. We have to realize that a significant percent of the population literally lives in a different world from us. They see themselves as rational, just as we do. The things that are obvious to us are lies to them, and vice versa.
This is not going to end well, that is certain.
The trick is to get them while they are young. Once the outer skins of the shucked bean get thick, the extra effort to skin them and reveal the tender green bean inside is well worth it, though the mass of bean is substantially reduced. Steam them for 5 mins and then most of them will ‘pop’ and can be gently squeezed out of their skins. I wonder whether many people’s objection to them is as a result of being given them when they are too old and with the thick indigestible skin on.
trump can’t be pardoned from State indictments.
New York will have a field day with the trump crime family
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