Something about the framing, background, and lighting of the picture on the left looks like it’s a still from The Office.
“Dwight! Put that away. What did I tell you about bringing religious stuff into the office?”
“That is was manly?”
“Yes, but also, don’t”
Your version is only slightly less depressing than
Don’t Impeach Trump. Give Him Immunity.
How about we get him to resign and tell him he has immunity. Then when we toss him in jail and he protests, we reveal that the guy who promised him immunity is a homeless guy in a $300 suit from Men’s Wearhouse.
Still good for everybody, especially the homeless guy.
There are many semi functional democracies where immunity from criminal prosecution plays a depressingly large role in the country’s politics. What’s next? A proposal to make Trump “Senator for Life?”
The problem with pardons is that you have to accept them. Accepting them means that you basically admit to whatever crime you are being pardoned for, and once you do that, you lose your 5th amendment right against self-incrimination. (Because you just freely incriminated yourself.) Basically, a person who has been pardoned can be compelled to spill the beans upon pain of contempt of court (or congress), and further imprisonment.
So I don’t think a pardon is forthcoming for Stone. Or Manafort, for that matter.
ETA: But I’m not a lawyer, and I could be all wrong about this.
In fact, the only way I can see anyone getting a pardon in this mess is if everyone gets one, including Trump, once President Pence is installed in office. That’s what happened with Nixon and pals after Ford took over.
(Actually, I could see Pence letting Trump swing in the wind. That would be very satisfying.)
These are all true and I’m sure Stone doesn’t give a crap. He seems like the kind of guy that would wear “convicted felon” as a badge of honor.
Eugene Volokh is a lawyer.
Someone make me this shirt please:
(black shirt and in white letters)
Stone,
Flynn,
Cohen,
Gates,
Manafort,
& Papadopoulos
THe flames totally sell it. I’d go broke, lining this fella’s hat xD…
My highland ancestors would have loved these, going into battle with the Sassenach.
For context, when a dying John McCain had the gall to break ranks with the GOP and vote against one of Trump’s attempts to kill the Affordable Care Act, Roger Stone gleefully pointed out that McCain would be dead soon and said he’d burn in hell for betraying his party. So it’s hard to blame Meghan for holding a grudge.
Let’s not forget that when McCain did this, it wasn’t out of any sort of ideological opposition to repealing the ACA, it was in protest of procedural issues. In the end he was just another conservative scumbag who happened to not like Trump, but voted with him nearly 100% of the time anyway.
I think it’s remotely possible that if, say, three congressional committees and NYS subpoenaed Stone immediately, and then enforced, say, $25k a day fines against him when he doesn’t show up that, maybe, just maybe, he’d provide some testimony against Trump. It would probably take Trump tweeting smack about Stone and, doh, it would take quick moving committees but there’s at least one timeline near ours where Stone babbles.
McCain was a conservative who had a number of major flaws, but the things he did that pissed off Trump and Roger Stone weren’t among them.
Even dyed-in-the-wool conservatives have good reason to regard Roger Stone as a shitstain of a human being.
He should have never left Mr. Peabody to support Mr. Trump.
I guess Roger does sound more hardcore than Sherman though.
But that’s assuming that Trump listens to advice instead of acting impulsively. And even then that’s assuming there is anyone left who even tries to give Trump advice.
I don’t actually believe that people do things to protest procedural issues. Lifetime civil service bureaucrats might, but not elected politicians. When someone complains about procedure it’s a mask over some other problem. Whether it was egotism or preening or hatred of Trump or a personal beef with McConnell, McCain knew their life was ending and wanted that vote in their obituary. That tells me that McCain thought that ultimately they’d be judged as being the good guy for voting that way. There’s no way I can think about it where I don’t see McCain basically choosing to do the right thing there.
I’m not going to pull up a ledger and weigh McCain’s virtues and sins, I guess I just see it as the corollary to the goat-fucker rule (even if you fuck goats ironically, you’re still a goat-fucker): Even if you save millions of people out of egotism, you still saved millions of people. We just have to be thankful at least some of the time the best way to appear as if you are doing something right is to actually do something right.
